NTC issuing new rules to measure internet speed

MANILA, Philippines – The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is looking to release the rules for the measurement of mobile internet service this month.

“Within this month, maybe we can issue,” NTC deputy commissioner Edgardo Cabarios said in a telephone interview.

He said the release of the memorandum has been delayed as the NTC needs to study the suggestions in position papers submitted by non-government organizations and consumer groups.

“There are suggestions. We are studying if it would be considered or not,” he said.

Cabarios said the suggestions made involve the manner by which the mobile internet service would be measured.

The NTC initially planned to release the rules in November last year.

The draft of the rules provided earlier showed the NTC will conduct the monitoring and measurement of mobile broadband service by looking at the downstream and upstream average data rate, latency, jitter and packet loss.

The measurement will be conducted taking into consideration the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) uncontrollable variables.

For instance, for mobile ISPs providing only the access network and lease bandwidth from broadband connectivity providers, the measurement will be conducted within the access network of the said mobile ISPs.

Measurements for all mobile ISPs will be conducted simultaneously.

The NTC will conduct the monitoring and measurements during peak and off hours, using different subscribers’ broadband or Internet access data plans twice a week, to ensure reliability of results.