How The Philippines Got Asia's Worst Internet Service

[Old55]

How The Philippines Got Asia's Worst Internet Service

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2016/02/23/meet-asias-internet-laggard-the-philippines/#6cad7cef717a

 

A traveler to the Philippines knows the dance too well. You check into a hotel that advertises Wi-Fi. Turns out it’s only available in the lobby, and only in the daytime. Then you learn of a freak service outage in the lobby. When you do eventually connect, no websites come up. On better days, each website takes a minute or two to load. Yes, on any kind of device.

The Philippines is Asia’s outlier for Internet sloth, but why?

Occasionally the answer is local. Your host might be afraid of keeping the router going 24 hours, for example. Or the hotel lacks money to extend Wi-Fi coverage to guestrooms. But more common explanations in the Southeast Asian country popular with foreign tourists are linked to economic development pains and awkward relations among providers. Obviously the issue isn’t limited to tourists. Gum in the Internet slows business for the nation of 102 million people. Oh, and apparently help is not on the way.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Chairman Manuel Pangilinan ® addresses a media briefing in Manila’s financial district on August 4, 2015.

Here’s a schematic of how things don’t work.

The Philippines is made up of about 7,100 islands, making fixed networks particularly hard to build. Permits may be issued only at the smallest level of local government, and one by one. The government also charges “high fees,” a deterrent to any start-ups or foreign investors in broadband, said Fiona Vanier, senior media analyst with market research firm IHS Technology. Dominant broadband provider Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. controls much of the infrastructure, allowing it to charge fees higher than elsewhere in Asia despite a relatively poor population. The phone company goes on to charge other providers for traffic through its network as well, Vanier said, and the Philippines lacks Internet peering, which slows broadband speeds.

Most fixed-line Internet users still use old systems such as xDSL rather than newer fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology, reducing speeds, says market research firm IDC’s Southeast Asia senior telecom research manager Alfie Amir. Last year, IDC says, just 2% of fixed Internet connections in the Philippines were FTTH, compared to 33% across Asia excluding Japan.

High-speed service costs about $57 per month, more than in the United States, estimates Manila-based software technology entrepreneur Valenice Balace. After food, rent and education, that Internet bill “seems like a luxury,” she says. “Clearly, price would be the number one barrier for availing good internet speeds in the Philippines, since most people can’t afford it.”

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Slow adoption of relatively advanced 4G-LTE connections keeps mobile Internet speeds slow. Most subscribers stick to 2G and 3G networks, Amir said, with just 1% on LTE networks despite the Asia average of 12%. Again there are big guys on the block. Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp. wants to enter the market and was assigned 90% of an “attractive,” available 700 megahertz spectrum, IHS senior research analyst Seth Wallis-Jones says. But the country’s two current wireless providers, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Globe Telecom, oppose that allocation. They are vying for a share of that spectrum ”through the courts and by lobbying the president, which is adding some uncertainty and delay,” he says.

Finally come the flukes and scams. Pockets of the capital Manila cannot get Internet speed upgrades because providers for their addresses simply don’t offer it, Balace says. In villages that comprise the Puerto Galera coastal tourist area, the installer of landlines “actually put in wireless connections to routers on the landline on the nearest main road,” one frustrated off-the-road resort operator says. “Within a very few years they took these ‘landlines’ away anyway and so there are virtually no landlines in Puerto Galera,” the operator says.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Old55

[Richieboy67]

Pretty funny. We tried for weeks to get PLDT to even reply to our application.

We found Galaxy right down the road and got set up in one week. Now PLDT keeps calling about it application.. Too Late!

And yes, 4 g sucks here and I am yet to see LTE with decent speed anywhere.

[mogo51]

Please tell me it will get better in the next 12 to 18 months?

[Dave Hounddriver]

Please tell me it will get better in the next 12 to 18 months?

 

It will get better in the next 12 to 18 months.   :rolleyes:   (It must.  Can't get any worse.)  :hystery:

[AlwaysRt]

Please tell me it will get better in the next 12 to 18 months?

 

It will get better in the next 12 to 18 months! (Not sure if the better it will be the it your hoping for though)  :whistling:

[Ynot]

i might as well join the cue, it will get better in the next 12 to 18 months :mocking:

[robert k]

It will get better in the next 12-18 months....somewhere.

[expatuk2014]

As aforementioned PLDT controls the Infastrucure and so controls the Internet !

we are on their up to 2mbps service at 1299pesos a month which is basic but ok for our needs, and its shared with the sister also.

As for PLDT and their service ! thats another matter ! Luckily we have a PLDT Engineer living up the road who is a family friend !

so we just call at his house and problem fixed ! if we call PLDT it could be days !!

the only Service we get on a daily Basis from PLDT is some one calling us sometimes twice a day every day trying to get us to have their

new wave tablet !! and as it turns out its an agent working on commission for PLDT !

We have cable TV who also do internet but their service reliability wise is worse than PLDT !

[luke]

There is no competition. Globe and PLDT divide up the network. The smaller providers are dependent on the monopolists.

On top of that average Filipinos (and expats/retirees??) don't like subscriptions. If they have subscription they pay only after getting a disconnection notice. 

 

Aussie Telstra is promising to develop a nationwide telecom network that will COMPETE with the existing telco's. Still waiting to see that happen....

[Huggybearman]

In fairness, my experience with PLDT has been quite good. Admittedly expensive at 3300php per month for 8mbps, it has been reliable over the last year. Certainly fast enough to stream UK TV channels without buffering. They are installing fibre optic in the area at the moment with promised speeds of up to 1gbps. Whether that actually translates to much faster end user speeds remains to be seen. So I guess things are getting better.........but slowly!

Ken