Mobile internet speed slowed down sharply in Q1 2017, US report says

Mobile internet speed in the Philippines suffered a sharp drop in the first quarter of 2017, according to the closely followed State of the Internet Report by US-based Akamai Technologies.

The Philippines’s mobile internet speed clocked in at 8.7 megabits per second during the period. While the country was ahead of neighbors Singapore and Thailand, it was down 40 percent from the last quarter, when the Philippines was No. 1 in Asia-Pacific. Indonesia, an archipelago often compared to the Philippines, reported a speed of 12.8 mbps.

The results underscored the wild swings in internet speed results in a country that Akamai itself noted had too few measurable data points.

And as telco executives downplayed the score, critics pointed out the latest report pierced the narrative of PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom that the rollout of the 700 Megahertz frequency, obtained as part of the P70-billion buyout of San Miguel Corp.’s telco assets, helped bolster the overall mobile broadband speed.

Among them, Pierre Galla, co-founder of ICT advocacy group Democracy.Net.PH, who also noted it was clear measurements of Akamai, often cited by government agencies as proof of better mobile services, were not reflective of the quality experienced by consumers.

“It is very clear there was not enough data to make a judgement,” Galla said in an interview.

Akamai, as in previous reports, noted that the Philippines had less than “25,000 unique IPv4 addresses classified as mobile observed.” Galla said less data sets meant less accurate results.

The report also touched on fixed-line broadband speed, where the Philippines traditionally lags behind when compared to the rest of the region.

Akamai said the Philippines was still at the bottom with an average speed of 5.5 mbps in its report, while Indonesia reported 7.2 mbps. There was a big improvement, however, as fixed-line speed in the Philippines jumped 20 percent over the last quarter and 57 percent year-on-year.