SLOW INTERNET CONNECTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The Philippines perform poorly on the speed and on the availability of long-term

evolution (LTE) connection in the country.

The firm’s “State of the LTE report” for November 2017 ranked the country into

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 the predecessor.

Internet in the Philippines first became available on March 29, 1994, with the

Philippine Network foundation (PHNet) connecting the country and its people to Sprint

in the United States via a 64 kbit/s link. As of 2016, more than 44,000,000 people used

the internet in the country, accounting for 43.5% of the total population.

However, the growth of the internet in the Philippines was hindered by many

obstacles including unequal distribution of internet infrastructure throughout the country,

its cost and corruption in the government. But these obstacles did not altogether halt all

the developments.
General Objective

In this study, the researcher will know why does the internet connections in the

Philippines are very slow.

Specific Objective

In this study, the researcher will determine the several factors that affect the

Philippines’ internet connections.

Significance of the Study

The study is to give information about the slow internet connection in the

Philippines.

Limitation of the Study

This study will be focused on gathering information about the slow internet

connection in the Philippines.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The Philippines are “paying more for less” as the actual speed of their connection

has never reached the “advertised speedz

In 2011, Mary Grace Santos, a researcher from the LIRNEasia studied the impact

of slow and expensive internet in the country. (MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net)

In 2011, In terms of average connection speed, 20.3 mbps is registered for the PH.

Singapore is reading with 98.5 mbps, Hong Kong with 92.6 mbps and South Korea at 79

mbps. (MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net)

Santos said internet connection is also “very expensive” in the Philippines

pointing out that the bandwidth in Manila would range from $25 and $45 per mbps or it

could go up as $70 in Cebu compared to only $5 and $6 in Hong Kong and Australia,

respectively. (MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net)

She cited two main reasons why the Philippines has been lagging behind other

nations in terms of internet connection: First, lack of government support for Internet

Infrastructure and the lack of real competition in the telecommunications industry.

(MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net)

In the Philippines, only private companies are funding structures for telco

backbone. (https://astig.ph/the-true-state-of-ph-internet-speed/)
 QUEZON City, Philippines (February 29, 2016) – Filipinos are using social

media platforms 53 hours a week, which means a whole 11 hours more than the global

average of 42 hours and that’s the reason why the Philippines was named as the “Social

Media Capital of the World”. But what makes the title more amazing is the fact that,

according to Ookla, the world’s leading Internet speed testing company that ranks and

index the download speed of broadband Internet speed around the globe, the Philippine

has the second slowest in terms of Internet speed in Asia and one of the worst Internet

download and upload speed in the world. (https://www.eaglenews.ph/ph-internet-speed-

slow-and-expensive/)

Comparison, the Philippines’ Southeast Asian neighbor, Singapore rank top as the

fastest Internet speed in the world with the unbeatable 122.43 mbps followed by Hong

Kong with a 102.96 mbps Internet speed, then Saint Pierre and Miquelon with 97.11

mbps. Also there are other countries from Asia that got into the top 10 fastest Internet

speed, like Japan (top 4) with 82.12 mbps, South Korea (top 6) with 59.77 mbps and

Macau (top 9) with 50.66 mbps, while the Philippine ranks 176 which is really far from

our neighbors. This simply means, that it will take a lot of work just to catch up.

(https://www.eaglenews.ph/ph-internet-speed-slow-and-expensive/)

Top ten fastest internet speed in the world:

1. Singapore – 122.43 mbps

2. Hong Kong – 102.96 mbps

 3. Saint Pierre and Miquelon – 97.11 mbps

4. Japan – 82.12 mbps

5. Romania – 73.75 mbps

6. South Korea – 59.77 mbps

7. Sweden – 58.58 mbps

8. Lithuania – 58.43 mbps

9. Macau – 50.85 mbps

10. Netherlands – 50.66 mbps

Also in Asian countries, only Afghanistan ranks lowest than the Philippines with

the 2.52 Mbps, but still Philippine is the second lowest with such a turtle speed of 3.64

Mbps. Here is the list of Asian countries ranked with Ookla’s household speed index as

of May 2015:

Singapore – 122.43 Mbps

Hong Kong – 102.96 Mbps

Japan – 82.12 Mbps

South Korea – 59.77 Mbps

Macau – 50.66 Mbps

Taiwan – 50.59 Mbps

Thailand – 19.82 Mbps

Mongolia – 17.92 Mbps

Vietnam – 17.70 Mbps

Bangladesh – 9.86 Mbps

Cambodia -- 9.04 Mbps

Nepal -- 8.63 Mbps

Brunei – 7.99 Mbps

Bhutan – 7.82 Mbps

India -- 7.04 Mbps

Malaysia -- 7.03 Mbps

Laos -- 6.92 Mbps

Indonesia -- 6.68 Mbps

Myanmar 6.54 Mbps

Pakistan 4.00 Mbps

Philippines – 3.64 Mbps

Afghanistan – 2.52 Mbps

Moreover, the global average of upload speed in the world is 10.59 Mbps, meaning

that the Philippines rank lower than the average with an upload speed of 1.53 Mbps, while

the average global download speed is 23.3 Mbps which is eight times faster than in the

Philippines. It is not questionable that the country is considered as one of the countries
having the worst Internet speed worldwide. It is bad enough to be ranked as one of the

countries in the world that have slow Internet speed, but what makes the situation worse is

the fact that despite the bad service, the Philippine has the most expensive Internet

connection in the world. According to studies, Philippine Internet users spend $18.19

(P864.84) per Mbps, compared to average of $5.21 (P247.71) per Mbps worldwide. That’s

definitely the reason the Philippines is at 176 out of 202 countries.

Not to be all negative, there is actually a minor improvement with the Internet speed

compared to last year speed of only 3.4 Mbps. Well, let’s hope that in the future the Internet

connection in the Philippine will be fast, reliable, accessible, and affordable and hopefully

can download and upload in just a blink of an eye. (https://www.eaglenews.ph/ph-internet-

speed-slow-and-expensive/)

August 17, 2017 at 5:10 am

This is with regard to “‘Slowest internet speed in the world’” which came out in

Joel Ruiz Butuyan’s column (Opinion, 8/14/17).

Mr. Butuyan said: “Disappointingly, our country’s internet access is controlled by

two companies that provide one of the slowest and most expensive internet services in the

world… The cost per megabit per second in the Philippines is at an average value of $18.18,

while global average is only $5.21 according to the study.” Unfortunately, he did not

disclose which study he used as reference in declaring his opinion. We write to help

enlighten Mr. Butuyan and Inquirer readers on the truth about internet speed in the

Philippines.
 1. That “our country’s internet access is controlled by two companies” is farthest

from the truth. A simple Google search will indicate there are at least 14 internet service

providers in the Philippines. These providers are a combination of national and regional

networks that provide internet services to homes and businesses nationwide.

2. As to internet speed, we refer to the State of the Internet Report by Akamai, a

global leader in Content Delivery Network services, headquartered in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, that delivers more than 2 trillion internet interactions daily through its

globally distributed content delivery platform, enabling them to share an informed view on

internet connectivity. In their Q1 2017 report, the Philippines registered 5.5 Mbps for fixed

line internet, an improvement of 57-percent YoY, while mobile is 8.7 Mbps.

Nowhere in this report did it indicate that we are the slowest in the world in terms of internet

speed. By contrast, the country registered the strongest growth in the Asia-Pacific.

Arguably, internet speed is relative to device, availability of spectrum bandwidth, and

infrastructure density in any country.

3. As to price per Mbps, Globe is offering its Home Broadband plans (fixed line)

at 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps speed at P1,899 and P2,499 per month, respectively, in areas

where we have strong fiber optic connection. This translates to P38 or $0.74 per Mbps for

a 50 Mbps plan and P25 or $0.48 per Mbps for a 100 Mbps plan. For mobile internet, Globe

offers P48.82 per GB of data —one of the lowest in Asia. Singapore has prices at P161.28

per GB, Indonesia at P122.50 per GB, and Malaysia at P116.92 per GB—a far contrast to

what Mr. Butuyan claimed.

We are now in the age of technological advancements and innovations such as Internet of

Things, robotics and artificial intelligence, hence it is not that difficult to imagine Mr.

Butuyan’s hologram of planet Earth. Globe as an ICT company is an advocate of latest

technology use in the country, such as cloud, IoT, financial technology and even AI.

But it cannot be denied that the Philippines is suffering from a severe lack of ICT

infrastructure — a huge challenge that we need to overcome as a country. Unlike in other

countries where the government actively invests in cell towers, submarine cable systems,

and fiber optic cables to augment the multibillion- dollar spending of industry players,

spending for ICT infrastructure in the Philippines is mostly led by the private sector. Thus,

countries like Vietnam have 70,000 cell sites today and China has over a million cell sites,

compared to our country’s 16,400 cell sites funded exclusively by the private sector. The

biggest contributor to the lack of infrastructure is the debilitating bureaucracy and

permitting issues that telco operators like Globe are faced with. It takes 25 permits and

eight months to put up one cell site. Laying down fiber optic cables requires right-of-way

permits that usually take just as long. And homeowners’ associations can easily refuse any

operator who wants to put up much-needed infrastructure to help connect cities and

municipalities. As a service operator, Globe is committed to provide superior experience

for its over 60 million customers.

We invest an average of $500-750 million a year to improve our network. As the purveyor

of the Filipino digital lifestyle, we partner with large iconic brands for content and digital

experience to meet the changing demand of our customers. YOLY CRISANTO, SVP,

Globe Corporate Communications

(https://m.inquirer.net/opinion/106393)

I am pretty sure this is because of the “triopoly” of the three major internet

providers. In a country where there are hundreds touting for business, you will see the

internet speeds up to around 500mbps and more, whereas Philippines is languishing in the

1.5–50mbps with the higher speeds being a lot more expensive than in other countries. I

have recently moved from a 50mbps (about to be changed to 500mbps) system in Malaysia

to a 1.5 (PLDT) and 8mbps (Sky) in Davao (Mindanao). The 1.5 dies to around 0.5 after

5pm and on weekends, and the 8mbps dies to around 1.5 to 4 over the same period.

Sky costs us P1600 for the 8mbps plus some rubbish internet channels (we mainly use

streaming via Netflix, Iflix and Apple TV, which works surprisingly well on the 8mbps

system). We have been offered Globe fibre internet on our estate which promises the earth,

but we shall see… Maybe the triopoly has at last decided to put the customer first, or one

of them has already gone fibre and the others have to catch up… I’ll ask Sky if they are

also going fibre as we have a two year contract with them. (https/www.quora.com/Why-

does-the-Philippines-has-a-slow-internet-speed-especially-in-MindanaoWhy-does-the-

Philippines-has-a-slow-internet-speed-especially-in-Mindanao)

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Data Gathering Procedure

 The researcher will get hold the information from the internet.

Research locale

The researcher will conduct at the MSU-TCTO Electronic Library.

REFERENCE

(MATIKAS SANTOS/INQUIRER.net)

(https://astig.ph/the-true-state-of-ph-internet-speed/)

(https://www.eaglenews.ph/ph-internet-speed-slow-and-expensive/)

(Opinion, 8/14/17)

(https://m.inquirer.net/opinion/106393)

(https/www.quora.com/Why-does-the-Philippines-has-a-slow-internet-speed-especially-

in-MindanaoWhy-does-the-Philippines-has-a-slow-internet-speed-especially-in-

Mindanao)