Philippine mobile, broadband speed improve in 2022, says Ookla

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines saw the quality and speed of its internet connectivity improve by double digits in 2022 on the back of infrastructure expansions pursued by service providers.

Ookla, in its yearend report, said that mobile internet speed in the country rose by 31 percent to 25.12 Mbps in December 2022 from 19.2 Mbps in December 2021.

Likewise, fixed broadband speed zoomed by 73 percent to 87.13 Mbps from 50.26 Mbps, buoyed by the network upgrades made by internet providers.

At the end of 2022, Ookla said Smart Communications Inc. recorded the fastest median speed for mobile connectivity at 32.16 Mbps., followed by Globe Telecom Inc. with 21.3 Mbps, and Dito Telecommunity Corp. with 17.66 Mbps.

Ookla also recognized Smart for registering the lowest median latency in the Philippines at 47 ms, beating Dito’s 48 ms and Globe’s 56 ms. Latency, otherwise known as ping, measures in milliseconds the time it takes for a packet of data to be transferred from one source to another.

According to Ookla, Globe came out as the most consistent operator with its rating of 83.1 percent, exceeding Smart’s 80.8 percent and Dito’s 72.6 percent.

“In measuring the consistency of each operator’s performance, Ookla found that Globe had the highest consistency in the Philippines during the fourth quarter 2022 with 83.1 percent of results showing at least 5 Mbps minimum download speed and 1 Mbps minimum upload speed,” Ookla said.

However, Ookla said the Philippines has a long way to go in keeping up with the global median speed of 36.74 Mbps for mobile connectivity at the end of 2022, with Qatar’s 169.51 Mbps, United Arab Emirates’ 153.09 Mbps and Norway’s 128.14 Mbps leading the way.

On the other hand, the Philippines managed to exceed the global median speed of 75.18 Mbps for fixed broadband installations, dominated by Singapore with 225.71 Mbps, China with 223.49 Mbps, and Chile with 220.96 Mbps.

In the Philippines, Ookla said there was no statistical winner for the mobile device with the best Internet quality and speed.

However, Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 and Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra had the fastest download speeds among all mobile devices.

Last year, subscribers saw telco providers invest the bulk of their capital expenditures on network upgrades, particularly in new cable systems that seek to raise data capacity.

Globe allocated the highest capex at P89 billion, followed by Smart’s parent PLDT Inc.’s P85 billion and Dito’s P50 billion.