PH remains next to last in 4G speeds, availability in ASEAN – OpenSignal

MANILA, Philippines – Industry monitor OpenSignal recently published the March 2018 iteration of its  State of Mobile Networks report for the Philippines.

The report compares mobile network speeds and availability in the country to the rest of the world. Sadly, OpenSignal says not a lot has changed since their last report 6 months ago.

According to the report, it’s still “a two-horse race” with consumers still stuck picking between Globe’s wider 4G accessibility or Smart’s faster LTE speeds.

The crowdsourced data from the study finds that in terms of how often a user can have access to a 4G network, Globe retains the top spot with a 67.46% availability rating versus the 59.68% from Smart. Both, however, still fall short of the target 70% availability that suggest a maturing LTE coverage.

Smart, on the other hand, takes the crown for faster LTE with an average download speed of 12.48 Mbps versus Globe’s 7.69 Mbps. Globe barely improved its speeds since the last test and is now lagging behind Smart who saw a near 1.9Mbps improvement from their previous average of 10.6 Mbps. In terms of latency, Smart’s quicker 47.2 millisecond network responsiveness beats Globe’s 60.7 milliseconds.

Locally, 3G is still quite important considering it’s not always easy to find a reliable 4G connection. Similar to the last test, Globe and Smart are still statistically tied when it comes to 3G speeds, with Globe only having a 0.02 Mbps advantage over Smart.

“While the two carriers may be doing battle with each other, as a whole, the Philippines offered significantly worse LTE speeds and availability than most other countries in the world,” the report said.

The Philippines currently ranks second to last in terms of both overall average 4G speed and availability when compared to its ASEAN neighbors.

Only Indonesia has a slower average speed of 8.9 Mbps beside the 9.5 Mbps of the Philippines. The local average LTE availability of 63.7%, meanwhile, just barely nosed out Myanmar’s 62.5% rating.

OpenSignal attributes these results to geographical limitations that make nationwide LTE rollout extra difficult.

It could also be the lack of competition and with a third service provider in consideration, Globe and Smart could start feeling pressure to improve their services. If a third player does enter the country, it might need several more years to build out its LTE services.

OpenSignal’s report analyzes results from over 771 million measurements collected in the Philippines in the 90 days ending Jan. 31, 2018.

The full report is available here.– Rappler.com