Thursday, January 20, 2022

Internet Speeds: Are we still the slowest in ASEAN?

In 2014, we published a story about the Philippine internet/broadband speed being the slowest in the Asean region. At 3.6Mbps, the Philippines was ranked lower than Laos (4.0Mbps) and Myanmar (4.9Mbps) and Singapore, which was ranked at #1, was getting 61Mbps on average.

It went viral that a PLDT VP sent an emissary demanding that we took down the story.

It’s been almost 7 years since that news came out and while we continuously cover broadband stories in the Philippines, we think it’s time to re-visit that topic — are we still the slowest in the region in terms of broadband speeds?

Well, according to Ookla, our median fixed broadband speeds are now at 50.26Mbps (14x faster than 7 years ago) and the Philippines is ranked at #63 worldwide. That’s 9 places higher compared to our rankings in December 2020 at #72. In July of that year (2020), the Philippines was at 108th at 23.74Mbps. That’s a huge leap in the span of less than 2 years.

Country	April 2014	December 2021	Percentage Increase
Singapore	61.0Mbps	192.17Mbps	315%
Japan	41.7Mbps	111.36Mbps	267%
USA	22.3Mbps	136.53Mbps	612%
China	18.3Mbps	153.33Mbps	838%
Thailand	17.7Mbps	175.93Mbps	934%
Global Average	17.5Mbps	59.75Mbps	341%
Vietnam	13.1Mbps	68.53Mbps	523%
ASEAN Average	12.4Mbps	69.18Mbps	558%
Cambodia	5.7Mbps	19.01Mbps	334%
Malaysia	5.5Mbps	83.07Mbps	1,510%
Myanmar	4.9Mbps	15.75Mbps	321%
Brunei	4.9Mbps	35.92Mbps	733%
Indonesia	4.1Mbps	20.22Mbps	493%
Laos	4.0Mbps	30.97Mbps	774%
Philippines	3.6Mbps	50.26Mbps	1,396%

From dead last at #10 in 2014, the Philippines jumped to the front of the rankings and is now at #5, next to Vietnam. Among the 10 ASEAN countries, Malaysia has the highest speed improvement at 1,510% followed by the Philippines at 1,396%.

We’ll give credit where credit is due — the Philippines is doing much better in terms of broadband performance. And we’ve seen this in the last 3 to 5 years where a lot of service providers have shifted attention (and capital expenditures) to expanding the national broadband network. Competition also played a huge role with Converge ICT putting a lot of pressure against the two telco giants despite being a new entrant in the space.

Notes: We used Ookla as the basis for the internet broadband speed and ranking since it’s publicly available and it was the same measurement tool that placed the Philippines dead last in 2014.

The ASEAN average was derived from taking the average speeds of all 10 member nations listed in the table.

Singapore’s average speeds dropped from 208.16 Mbps in July 2020 to 192.17Mbps in December 2021. Indonesia also dropped to just 20.22Mbps from 21.28 Mbps in July 2020 as well as Laos (34.61Mbps -> 30.97Mbps) and Myanmar (18.78 Mbps -> 15.75Mbps).

Further readings — Internet

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