Thomas Barnett would call this article about a bill before the Philippines' Congress to reclassify VoIP an impending "rule-set rewrite." If you follow Barnett at all, you'll know that he places countries in what he calls the Gap or the Functioning Core. The Gap is the set of countries who are disconnected from the functioning Core in many respects. The Philippines is inside the Gap.

This bill represents a change to the laws of the Philippines that would make it easier for network provides to offer VoIP phone services in competition with established telecom providers. Monopoly telecom providers are one problems that Gap countries face. Telecommunications are expensive and often shoddy. This bill represents a small step in connecting the Philippines. Don't expect the telecom providers with franchises to take this lying down. I've set up a Google news alert to try to follow this bill and see what happens.

One of the reasons I like reading things like Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map and Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles is that the give me a framework for understanding events like this Philippines telecom bill. Without that framework all this news is just so much noise washing over you. With a framework, it starts to paint a picture.