PH still ranks low in internet speed, availability

The Philippines gained in terms of LTE speed and availability, but so did the rest of the world, leaving the country still close to the bottom globally in terms of the quality of mobile internet, according to a crowdsourced survey.

In its closely followed State of LTE report as of June 2017, United Kingdom-based OpenSignal ranked the Philippines fourth from the bottom in 4G availability and fifth from the bottom in 4G speed. OpenSignal’s survey covered 75 countries, with South Korea taking a leading position.

Specifically, 4G availability in the Philippines was close to 53 percent, better than the 44.8 percent in OpenSignal’s Nov. 2016 State of LTE report. Still, the availability score placed the Philippines among 19 countries below the 60-percent threshold. Availability here refers to the time users are able to access an LTE network.

In terms of 4G speed, the Philippines achieved 8.59 megabits per second (mbps), better than 7.27 mbps six months ago. However, the global average stood at 16.2 mbps.

OpenSignal said speed depended on various factors such as spectrum allocation, the network infrastructure and how many devices had access to those networks, which could cause congestion.

“It’s been six months since OpenSignal published its last State of LTE report and in those half-dozen months the world’s 4G players haven’t been idle,” OpenSignal said.

“Operators around the world have been expanding and upgrading their 4G infrastructures, adding more LTE customers and in some cases launching their first 4G services,” it added.

The June 2017 scores were collected from 19.5 billion measurements across more than half a million test devices from Jan. 1 to March 31 this year.

As noted, South Korea had the best LTE availability at 96 percent. It was also the second fastest with 43.5 mbps, just behind Singapore’s 45.62 mbps. (Singapore’s availability stood at 82 percent).

Other Southeast Asian countries scored better than the Philippines in availability. Indonesia had 62.7 percent, Malaysia had almost 65 percent while Thailand had 75.9 percent.

In terms of speed, the Philippines was ahead of Indonesia’s 7.71 mbps but behind Thailand’s 11.85 mbps and Malaysia’s 14.35 mbps. Sri Lanka had the poorest LTE availability at just above 40 percent while Cost Rica was the slowest, at 5.14 mbps.

“Every country may face a different set of 4G conditions today, but those conditions are constantly changing. Operators are expanding their LTE footprints, upgrading their networks and finding more spectrum to plow into their 4G services,” OpenSignal said.