LTE speed in PH slowed in July-Oct

The Philippines posted mixed results in terms of the quality of LTE mobile internet, with a new crowd-sourced survey showing an incremental gain in availability while LTE average speed saw a slight decline.

These were among the results in the closely followed State of LTE report on Nov. 2017, which considered data from July to Oct. 31 this year.
OpenSignal said the survey used more than 50 billion measurements across 3.8 million test devices.

The report showed that the Philippines, whose two major telecom providers were PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom, was still behind most jurisdictions in the world when measured in terms of speed and LTE availability.

As of November, the Philippines had an LTE availability of 58.83 percent, better than 52.77 percent in OpenSignal’s previous State of LTE report in June 2017.

LTE speed in the Philippines, however, saw a decline. From 8.59 megabits per second in the June 2017 survey, the figure slid to 8.24 mbps based on the November results.

Close neighbors such as Thailand and Malaysia also saw a slight dip in LTE or 4G speeds. From 11.85 mbps in June, Thailand ended with 9.4 mbps in the November report while Malaysia went from 14.35 mbps in June to 14.17 mbps in November.

By contrast, Indonesia, which is most often compared to the Philippines since it is also an archipelago, saw an improvement in speed. Its LTE speed rose from 7.71 mbps in June to 9.02 mbps in the November report.

OpenSignal said the global average download speed for LTE stood at 16.6 mbps.

Meanwhile, South Korea and Japan had the best LTE availability in November at 96.7 percent and 94.11 percent, respectively. In terms of 4G speed, Singapore and South Korea led the pack, with 46.64 percent and 45.85 percent, respectively.

OpenSignal observed in its report that the growth in LTE speed had slowed or even declined in “top-performing 4G countries.” It, however, noted that availability had been growing.

“The mobile industry—for the time being at least—appears to have shifted its focus from building powerful LTE networks to building far-reaching networks,” OpenSignal said.

(OpenSignal’s full report is available through the following link: https://opensignal.com/reports/2017/11/state-of-lte)