Internet speed in PH improving, says DICT

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said internet speeds in the Philippines had improved over last year, citing crowdsourced data from Ookla.

For mobile internet speed, it said the Philippines ranked 86th globally in January 2021 versus 111th in the same period in 2020. Fixed internet was at 100th place globally or unchanged.

Comparing January this year with December 2020, mobile internet speed went up by 14.5 percent to 22.5 megabits per second (Mbps) while fixed broadband speed rose 4.1 percent to 31.44 Mbps, the DICT said.

“Our vision of digital transformation will be realized if all Filipinos, regardless of who they are and where they are in the country, have quality access to Internet connectivity services at affordable prices,” Information and Communications Secretary Gregorio Honasan II said in a statement.

The DICT and National Telecommunications Commission are conducting twice monthly meetings to check on the status of their network rollout plans and “to address any problems that may cause lags in its implementation.”

In 2020, the Philippine government took serious steps to address regulatory bottlenecks that have slowed the rollout of telco infrastructure.

This helped telco incumbents PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom as well as startup Dito Telecommunity accelerate the rollout of infrastructure.

Globe and PLDT earlier announced they were building thousands of new cell towers this year and laying down fiber cables at an unprecedented pace. Converge ICT will operate nationwide within the year while Dito Telecommunity is expected to launch its commercial services by March 2021.

In the statement, the DICT said it would continue to coordinate with the NTC to ensure that telcos would complete their rollout plans.