While watching broadband basically fade away as an important political issue in this country, I've been following with great interest the ongoing situation in the Philippines, where a scandal involving the highest levels of the government over a broadband deal gone horribly wrong has been growing and now, for the last month or two, raging. It has all the makings of a Hollywood movie, complete with whistleblowers, kick backs, cover ups, death threats, senate hearings, abductions, the possibility of bringing down a presidency, and even Corizon Aquino getting into the act.

For those of you who have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, the basic premise of the story can be gathered from this article. The Philippine Government contracted Chinese firm ZTE to build a national broadband network for $329-million. It then surfaced that all kinds of kick backs and payoffs were in the deal - about US$130 million. The $329 million contract won by Chinese firm ZTE has since been scrapped amid allegations of bribery and corruption involving senior government officials and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s husband, lawyer Jose Miguel Arroyo. Now there's an ongoing probe, senate hearings, and all kinds of controversy.

Of course, there's much, much more to the whole story, and it is very complicated - if you type "ZTE" into Google News, you'll see just how complicated it gets with all the accusations and allegations flying around - but I have to say I was really surprised when I ran across this article where President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husbands' lawyers are actually accusing the whistleblowers of trying to bring down his wifes Presidency by exposing the broadband deal gone bad.

After just recently writing about the appalling lack of interest being shown by politicians and government in this country about the state of our national broadband policies and the shenanigans being pulled by providers and the FCC, the fact that the Presidency of a country is in jeopardy over a broadband deal just blows me away.

Of all the scandals and corruptions that abound, a broadband deal gone bad that could kill a presidency? I mean, even their military is on watch over this:

I have to add that in a nice bit of irony, ZTE has just entered the US market with the offering of its first handset over here.

Is it bad of me to think that a national broadband scandal is better than the allegedly most powerful and greatest country in the world letting its own broadband policies become a complete governmental non-issue? I mean, sure the deal went bad and there's corruption and all, but when you think about it, the whole thing started with good intentions - that being building a national broadband network. Point is that the government was at least trying to do something. What is our government doing (I ask yet again)?

Eh, on second thought, maybe that is a bit of crazy thinking. We have enough corruption and funny business going on after all - and some of our funny business involves questionable uses of cigars. I guess its that the thought of a broadband deal possibly bringing down a presidency is just something that would have never occurred to me. At the very least its definitely something I never thought I'd see since becoming interested in a not very widespread at the time technology called "High Speed Internet" and getting hooked on a website that almost no one had heard of back then - with that involvement now starting to get towards a decade long now (ack!). And now here I am writing about national broadband policies (or lack thereof).

Last year, 73 million people were added to the nation's total netizen population. Of the increment, 29.17 million, or 40 percent,lived in rural areas. This brought the number of rural Internet users to 52.62 million at the end of 2007, up 127.7 percent year-on-year. The rate was much higher than the 38.2 percent for urban areas. The impressive growth in rural regions was due largely to government efforts and the robust demand from those areas.

Speaking of which - getting back on my favorite subject these days (and you knew I would, heh) - I also ran across this article which I found of interest on the subject of making a national broadband policy and initiative work. And its not from a small, poor, or sparsely populated country. We're talking China here. It seems that according to the article, China's information industry authority plans to expand broadband service to more than 95% of the nation's villages in 2008. Think about that. Nintey-five percent of the countries villages... not towns or cities, but villages - will have broadband access. By the end of this year. Here are some numbers from the article for you to ponder:And I'm willing to bet the broadband available to the Chinese villagers isn't the 200kbps "broadband" as defined by our lovable FCC. Nope. I'm betting the Chinese villagers's broadband flows faster than the Yangtze River during a flash flood. I guess that would make our FCC-approved average broadband speed about as fast as frozen molasses in comparison. Any takers?

One of the largest, most densely populated countries in the world, second only to the USA as a world power (if that is still the case), will have their rural areas 95% covered by real broadband by the end of this year. I don't know about you, and maybe its bias or ignorance on my part, but when I think of a rural Chinese village, I think of... let's just say really rural living conditions. But they'll have broadband. And, as the quote above states, most of the broadband growth in the country is in the rural areas... "due largely to government efforts and the robust demand from those areas."

You see it coming, don't you? :)

We have demand. In China, their villages are getting what they want because the government has heard the call and is answering. They are apparently keeping their promises. We were supposed to have total coverage by 2007. I don't have to reiterate how the claim that that promise has been met is a lie.

If we can't figure it out for ourselves, maybe its time for those in charge to look elsewhere - to someone who has figured out the correct way... a way that really works... to achieve what has been promised to us without ridiculous definitions and false stats.

Assuming, of course, the Chinese aren't doing the same stat dance. :)