It's a shame Buddha never got the chance to log on to the Net. If he had, argues Taiwan-based entrepreneur Philip Diller, you can bet the 5th-century BC philosopher would have been a staunch opponent of per-byte pricing schemes for the Internet.
"More communication can only bring more harmony to the world," says Diller, the general manager of Pristine Communications, a six-year-old translation agency, information source, and Internet provider that bills itself as "a one-stop shop for organizations seeking a multilingual Asian presence on the Web." And since harmony is a basic Buddhist meme, Diller reasons, Buddha would have advocated fiat-rate Net pricing to encourage use.
But last December, Taiwan's Directorate General of Telecommunications announced that it would begin charging per-byte fees for international Internet transmissions. It cited concerns that Taiwan's appetite for connectivity would lead to serious traffic congestion.
Since that announcement, Diller and Pristine co-founder Tammy Turner have tried to educate the Taiwanese government on the plan's drawbacks. In April, Diller, who chairs the Independent Business Committee for the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, gave a speech to the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan's equivalent of Congress) and laid out community objections. It was a heady moment for the 33-year-old, who 10 years ago was just another scruffy American expat struggling to make ends meet by teaching English.
Of course, as the director of Taiwan's premier provider - offering PPP accounts as well as Web-page design - Diller had more than philosophical principles on his mind. Knowing that his livelihood was at stake, he argued that any restrictive government policies would severely dampen Taiwan's "public" ambition to evolve into a "regional hub of operations" for multinational corporations throughout Asia.
"It's crazy," agrees Lance Wu, deputy director of the Computer and Communication Laboratories, a division of Taiwan's infiuential Industrial Technology Research Institute. "They are running the Internet like a telephone network. This is no way to compete with Hong Kong and Singapore."
In June, Turner reported that Pristine had achieved at least partial success in its lobbying. The Taiwanese telecom authority announced that it would cap the monthly international data-transfer charge at NT$60,000 (approximately US$2,300). "This means we can at least know what our highest leased-line cost will be," Turner says.
But battles over line costs are only half the story. For Diller, the intersection of technology and communications has always been of metaphysical importance. "Translation is the core of communications in our global society," says Diller. "We have to learn to understand each other better so we can live and grow together. We still have a long way to go." Pristine Communications: 011 (886) 2 368 9023, www.pristine.com.tw.
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Buddha's per-Byte Blues
