Philippines among slowest in mobile internet speed worldwide

MANILA, Philippines — Mobile internet speeds in the Philippines continue to lag behind most countries in the world, ranking 11th slowest in upload speed and 16th slowest in download speed among 87 countries, according to the latest report of mobile analytics company OpenSignal.

OpenSignal’s “The State of Mobile Network Experience” report showed that the Philippines was among the 20 countries whose download speed experience were under 10 Mbps.

The country’s download speed of seven Mbps was just slightly better than that of Indonesia and India’s 6.9 Mbps and 6.8 Mbps, respectively.

South Korea was the world leader, being the only country where smartphone users enjoyed average mobile download speeds of over 50 Mbps, followed by Norway with 48.2 Mbps. 

Meanwhile, the report showed mobile upload speeds in the country is at 2.2 Mbps, slightly faster than India and Ivory Coast’s 2.1 Mbps.

In upload speed experience, top countries were Denmark and South Korea which both scored over 15 Mbps, while Iraq has the slowest with an average speed under one Mbps.

OpenSignal said upload speeds are typically slower than download, as current mobile broadband technologies tend to be focused on providing the best possible download speeds.

 “But upload speed is becoming increasingly important as consumer mobile habits shift away from downloading and consuming to

uploading and creating and sharing content like smartphone-created photos and videos,” it said.

In terms of 4G availability, the Philippines was ranked 21st from last among the 87 countries that were part of the report.

4G availability in the Philippines was at 72.4 percent, better than those of Albania, Brazil, and Tunisia, among others.

Video experience score of the country was at 35.1 out of 100, making it one of the 10 markets that fell into the “poor” category with scores ranging from zero to 40.

“We’ve seen 4G technology transform the way we use mobile devices

beyond the basic voice and messaging services of the early 2000s. Faster and more ubiquitous data connectivity has spread to almost every corner of the globe, and everyday mobile experience has now grown into entirely new sectors such as online gaming, streamed video and instant financial services,” OpenSignal said.

“And with a plethora of new services and use cases being made real by the hyper-fast speeds and low latency promised by 5G, the mobile network experience is set to metamorphize once again in the next decade,” it said.