Report: PH among lowest ranked countries in internet speed, availability

By CNN Philippines, Nov 3, 2017

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 3) — The Philippines performed poorly on the speed and availability of long-term evolution (LTE) connection in the country, according to mobile network research firm OpenSignal.

The firm’s “State of the LTE Report” for November 2017 revealed the country ranked 74th out of 77 countries in terms of 4G speed.

4G, or fourth generation mobile internet technology, is the current standard for mobile network connectivity, offering speeds ten times faster than its predecessor.

LTE is a type of 4G technology that delivers the fastest internet download and upload speeds, which could peak at 100 Mbps (megabytes per second).

According to the OpenSignal report, however, the Philippines clocked in an average download speed of just 8.24 Mbps.

This is slightly slower than the country’s 8.59 Mbps record in the firm’s June 2017 report.

Topping the list are Singapore, South Korea, and Norway, with average download speeds of 46.64 Mbps, 45.85 Mbps, and 42.03 Mbps, respectively.

India, Costa Rica, and Saudi Arabia performed worst, with respective average download speeds recorded at 6.13 Mbps, 6.98 Mbps, and 7.33 Mbps.

However, OpenSignal said “in general, 4G availability is improving across the globe – and at a rapid clip.”

OpenSignal said several factors affect a country’s average LTE speeds, including “how much spectrum is devoted to LTE, whether it has adopted new 4G technologies like LTE Advanced, how densely networks are built and how much congestion is on those networks.”

The research firm added the LTE availability in the Philippines was at 58.83 percent, placing the country at the 69th spot.

The country performed better as compared to the firm’s June 2017 report, where it had a recorded LTE availability of 52.77 percent.

According to OpenSignal, its metric does not measure geographic coverage, but rather “tracks the proportion of time users have access to a particular network.”

South Korea, Japan, and Norway performed best in this category, with 4G availability of 96.69 percent, 94.11 percent, and 88.66 percent, respectively.

Countries with worst 4G availability were Algeria, Sri Lanka, and Ecuador, at 41.50 percent, 42.79 percent, and 46.07 percent, respectively.

“We examined more than 50 billion measurements collected by more than 3.8 million smartphone and smart device users,” OpenSignal said.