THE state of the country’s internet speed has once again been identified as one of the slowest in the world.
In a November 2017 State of LTE report by London-based wireless coverage mapping firm OpenSignal, the Philippines ranked 74th out of the 77 countries examined in terms of long-term evolution (LTE) speed. Likewise, the country also scored poorly in LTE availability, ranking 69th.
The study was based on 50 billion measurements and more than three million test devices conducted between July and October this year.
Late in the game
OpenSignal has identified the Philippines’ LTE as still in its infancy.
“At the other extreme are countries that are still in their 4G infancy: Algeria, Costa Rica, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.” In contrast, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore and South Korea emerged as winners, with both good LTE speed and LTE availability.
The Philippines’ 4G speed, defined as the average download connection speed that a user experiences when connecting to LTE network, averaged at 8.24 megabits per second (Mbps).
Globally, average 4G speed is at 16.6 Mbps, an increase from the 16.2 Mbps OpenSignal recorded in the last six months. Singapore and South Korea had the fastest LTE speed of 46.64Mbps and 45.85 Mbps, respectively.
On the other hand, 4G availability rate in the Philippines stands at 58.83 percent. OpenSignal defines 4G availability as the “proportion of times” a user can access a network.
The countries that led in availability are South Korea at 96.69 percent and Japan at 94.11 percent.
“The global 4G market has reached a transition point. Instead of focusing on boosting speeds, we now see an industry intent on boosting accessibility to 4G signals,” the report reads.
Previous study
Six months ago, OpenSignal recorded only 33 counties out of the 77 examined that had 4G availability scores above 70 percent.
For its November 2017 report, this increased to 50 countries. The Philippines, however, was still not included in the count given its 58.83 percent LTE availability rate.
To date, OpenSignal has not seen any country that can average 50 Mbps.
A country’s 4G speed depends on many factors such as amount of spectrum devoted to LTE, adoption of new 4G technologies like LTE Advanced, density of networks, and level of congestion in the networks, said OpenSignal.
In the developed economies, the company observed that telco operators have ready LTE-Advanced infrastructure, while those in the developing countries are at a stage of completing their initial LTE rollouts and turning their 3G customers into 4G customers.
Click here to read Open Signal's full report.