Philippines internet ‘second slowest’ in Asia, ranks 110th among 139 nations

[Old55]

Mike the slowest internet I ever experienced was in a Internet cafe in Moalboal in 2002 or so. I had several important emails to send and it took over an hour to send one then the connection simply stopped working. 

[BrettGC]

7 hours ago, Shady said:

So are they ranking the average speed of one city, or the average speed of the whole country? Great reporting as usual.

It's compiled from the 100's of millions of tests done yearly by us, the users.  By doing the test you're adding to the data.  Those of you that have posted your results actually contributed to the data regardless of your location in any given country.  

Thailand, for example, has added Fibre To The Home (FTTH) to tens of millions of residences in the last 5 years.  FTTH is currently the fastest landline connection technology readily available and provides speeds in the gigabit range, as opposed to the megabit ranges of Fibre To The Node (FTTN - fibre to a local junction box, then copper wire to your home - maximum of 90ish megabit) or A/DSL (maximum of 8 megabit).  Cable is on a par with A/DSL.  So that explains Thailand's results.  

Due to the nature of fibre optic technology (basically glass wires in simplest terms) we're only limited by the processing speed, hardware, and modulation types at either end of the connection.  Theoretically, fibre could provide limitless speeds; at it's core all it really is is sending flashes of light (photons) down a tube, and light travels pretty quickly right? The problem is, we can only turn all those 1's and 0's coming our of our technology into a transportable signal (modulation) at limited speeds due to the processing speed of our hardware and current modulation types - more are being developed every day but getting everyone to agree on the same type so that the modems can talk to each other is a problem in itself (ITU tries to herd those cats).  This is further impeded (the electronics buffs will see what I did there) by our actual hardware and all the copper wire inside which slows things down considerably yet again (resistance).  You can only shove so much information (electrons, as opposed to photons) down a limited space. 

Now, you'll notice that those countries at the top of the list are all mostly single landmass nations as opposed to archipelagos, so it's relatively simple to run fibre to wherever they want.  Countries like PI face a problem in that running fibre to every island isn't cheap.  Renting space on a satellite transponder is even more expensive; there's only so much space up there in space.  So we arrive at the situation we have today in PI:  A hodge podge of towers, satellite and submarine copper cables with interoperability issues and providers who lack the will, or even incentive, to improve things when they're perfectly happy with the status quo and the profits they're receiving without further spending on infrastructure development.  But this isn't news to anyone.  Central Manila and Cebu City are the exceptions of course, but where does all the influence and money live?

Edited December 29, 2020 by BrettGC

[Shady]

10 minutes ago, BrettGC said:

It's compiled from the 100's of millions of tests done yearly by us, the users.  By doing the test you're adding to the data.  Those of you that have posted your results actually contributed to the data regardless of your location in any given country. 

Someone should tell the reporter:

23 hours ago, Old55 said:

 figures from The Speedtest Global Index, where in Manila – with an average mobile internet speed of only 18.49 megabits per second (Mbps) – ranked 110th among 139 countries or territories

  Brett for the typical high-rise residential building under construction in Manila or Cebu, do you think they're all wired for Fiber so that the hundreds of units can each have 100Mps if they wanted? 

[RBM]

15 hours ago, Mike J said:

I would be very pleased if I could get 18 megs per second.   Here is what I am getting right now. 

 

Mike have you tried GOMO we have more than doubled our speed and now pay around 60% less, plus no expiry. Does depend on the cell site your connected to.

[BrettGC]

23 minutes ago, Shady said:

Someone should tell the reporter:

  Brett for the typical high-rise residential building under construction in Manila or Cebu, do you think they're all wired for Fiber so that the hundreds of units can each have 100Mps if they wanted? 

Hard to say mate.  You'd hope it's so in PI but who can be certain.  Given the demographic that would be living in that type of building, probably, yes.  If it is the case I'd be curious as to whether it's to each individual apartment or a node somewhere in the building then copper to the actual apartments.  

Here's a link to to how the testing data is collected:

https://www.speedtest.net/global-index/about

Edited December 30, 2020 by BrettGC

[sonjack2847]

17 hours ago, jimeve said:

I'm getting decent download speeds of 30 to 60, but when I try to play streams it starts to buffer then completely stops.

I wonder if PLDT are throttling my connection! My wifi connection seems fine did some test and it said good to very good.

I have found that when it buffers If I shut down the PC then restart it usually sorts it out. I am PLDT same as you mate

 

[sonjack2847]

I just did a speedtest I am getting 8 ping 33.59 download and upload is 32.91. That is the best I have had in the phills even when I lived in Cebu city is was not that fast. I will not hold my breath.

[Explorer]

1 hour ago, BrettGC said:

Hard to say mate.  You'd hope it's so in PI but who can be certain.  Given the demographic that would be living in that type of building, probably, yes.  If it is the case I'd be curious as to whether it's to each individual apartment or a node somewhere in the building then copper to the actual apartments.  

There is probably some limit. When I rented a brand new apartment in Cebu Business Park I ordered service from PLDT, they never came to install, so after 2 weeks and multiple phone calls I canceled and signed up with Globe, they installed the service the next day. Later I was told by the building management that there is no capacity available for PLDT in the building.

[hk blues]

2 hours ago, Explorer said:

There is probably some limit. When I rented a brand new apartment in Cebu Business Park I ordered service from PLDT, they never came to install, so after 2 weeks and multiple phone calls I canceled and signed up with Globe, they installed the service the next day. Later I was told by the building management that there is no capacity available for PLDT in the building.

Same in my place - PLDT had already used up their allocation so only option was Globe.  From feedback from those with PLDT, Globe performs better in our area.  

[Gandang Smile]

7 hours ago, Mike J said:

This is Globe 4G via cell tower in Moalboal.  No phone lines in our immediate area and fiber is just a dream.   Always slow and even worse with many of kids using it for school work because of the pandemic.   A lot of the kids must still be in bed (6:00 am), I am getting 9.5 megs right now.  Woo Hoo 

This is the problem with living in Paradise...

To get the 100Mbps+ connections, the fiber at home and all the other amenities, the only solution is to live in one of the three large cities. Which becomes Hell or Purgatory.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Gandang Smile