MOBILE-DATA speeds in the Philippines remained far below the global average during the first six months of the year, despite efforts from local operators to improve the country’s standing through network improvements, data fromt wireless coverage mapping platform Open Signal showed.
In its brief report on the state of the Internet in the Philippines, the London-based crowdsourcing company said average speeds of 3G and 4G in the country “remained slow, well bellow” the global average speeds for the two mobile connections.
Compared to the global average of 16.2 Mbps for 4G, Smart Communications Inc.’s LTE speed was at 10.6 Mbps, while that of Globe Telecom Inc.’s was at around 8 Mbps.
On 3G, both ended the first half with roughly 2.5 Mbps in download speeds, a little less than half of the global 3G average of 4.4 Mbps.
Sought for comment, experts said the report is reflective of the current state of the Internet in the Philippines, noting that it continued to lag behind Asean peers in terms of speed and availability.
“Open Signal, which collects data from regular consumer smart-phones under normal
usage conditions, has been consistent in pointing out two things: that there is minimal improvement, if any, in the quality of the Philippines’s mobile broadband; and that the Philippines has one of the slowest broadband speeds in the region,” Better Broadband Alliance Convener Mary Grace Mirandilla-Santos told the BusinessMirror.
Winthrop Y. Yu, who chairs the Internet Society of the Philippines, added that the report provides hard evidence to his group’s claim that Internet speeds in the Philippines are inferior when compared to its neighbors.
“What is important is to view these reports against other countries in the region, and over time. Crowd-sourced data that measure actual speeds to end-user devices —not servers—still provide the most realistic measurements,” he said.
Developed countries like South Korea, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway and Singapore topped the speed tests sourced by Open Signal during the said period.
The Philippines was at the bottom 10 of the 75 countries found in the Open Signal 4G speed report.
Green shoots of recovery
But the report also noted green shoots of recovery, at least when it comes to availability. Globe led in 4G availability, with a 62.6-percent availability.
“Both operators, however, saw sizable improvements in their availability scores since the spring. Smart’s availability jumped 12 percentage points in our measurements, while Globe’s availability increased more than 7 percentage points,” it noted.
Globe and Smart are in the middle of their three-year network modernization programs, which started when they coacquired the telco assets of budding telco operator San Miguel Corp. Smart Spokesman Ramon R. Isberto said these signs of improvement may be attributable to the continued rollout of new cell sites and the modernization of the existing, amid the availability of new frequencies. “Internet speeds on mobile have been steadily improving because we have been rolling out LTE to more areas. In this matter, Smart is leading the way,” he said.
Isberto noted, however, that in order for more people to enjoy the services better, they must also upgrade to handsets capable of running on more frequencies, like the 700-megahertz (MHz) band.
“We also need to point out that it’s not enough to roll out the network. We also need to get more people to start using LTE handset, especially those that use the 700-Mhz frequency and can handle carrier aggregation. That’s one reason speeds are higher in other countries. More people have handsets that can handle low band and carrier aggregation,” Isberto said.
The two telcos have been eyeing the 700 MHz for years before they finally decided to copurchase the telco subsidiary of San Miguel for P70 billion to get their hands on the then-unused frequency band.
Before the said deal, the two telcos launched a series of campaigns, claiming that the 700-MHz band is one of the keys to unlocking the potentials of mobile Internet in the Philippines.
For her part, Globe Spokesperson Yolanda C. Crisanto said the improvements in the state of mobile data in the Philippines will continue, as the private sector has committed billions of pesos to make good use of the assets acquired from San Miguel.
“As you know the Philippines has just started using the 700-MHz spectrum after a year that the co-use agreement has been signed. It is important to note that only after a year we have made great strides in improving our mobile and fixed Internet speed. This trend will continue, given our commitment to our customers,” she said.
Although, without the government efforts in the build-up of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, some areas in the Philippines will continue to remain outside the Internet map. “However, the ICT infrastructure build has to happen soonest, so we call on the government to address the permitting issues and hasten the implementation of the National Broadband Plan,” she added.
‘Change the status quo’
But while for the two telcos these impro-vements are already laudable, experts believe that there could have been more development, given that the two operators fought hard to convince Filipinos that the key to improving the quality of the Internet in the Philippines is the unused San Miguel frequencies.
“There will always be improvements in technology; these improvements will naturally result in increases in Internet speeds over time. Even with the very limited deployment and use of advanced LTE, the Philippines has shown poor performance on LTE-only studies; and more important, has not improved the actual Internet experience of the majority of Philippine Internet users,” Yu said. Mirandilla-Santos, who is also an independent ICT researcher, said more than network improvements from existing operators, the government must move to bring in “disruptive reforms”.
“If the government is serious in making real change in Philippine Internet, it needs to change the status quo. It’s time for disruptive reforms that would bring in the much-needed competition and that would create the space for more players to enter the market, innovate and compete,” she said.
The Philippine Competition Commission has been championing a better competitive environment in the local telco industry, but has since hit a setback, when an injunction case was filed against its review of the P70-billion megadeal among Globe,
Smart and San Miguel.