March 2021 marks continued improvement in PH fixed broadband internet speed
The Philippine’s fixed broadband average download speed continued its surge for March 2021, according to the Ookla Speedtest Global Index report. The country registered a 7.79 Mbps or 20.25% increase in speed from the recorded 38.46 Mbps on February, jumping to 46.25 Mbps for this month.
“The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) shall continue to support and monitor the performance of telecommunications companies (telcos) and internet service providers’ (ISPs) to ensure their intensified efforts to improve Internet service performance this year,” Secretary Gregorio B. Honasan II said.
The March 2021 fixed broadband average download speed increase is the highest jump since Duterte took his seat as President. It represents a 484.70% increase compared to the country’s download speed of 7.91 Mbps back in July 2016.
As for the mobile network average download speed, there is a slight dip from the 26.24 Mbps recorded in February to 25.43 Mbps for March 2021. However, there is still a significant increase of 241.80% from the download speed of 7.44 Mbps back in July 2016.
The improvements in the country’s Internet speed were pronounced after President Rodrigo Duterte challenged telcos to shape up PH Internet speed and quality during his 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) last year. This was to ensure that our country’s Internet connectivity will be on par or even better than that of our Asian neighbors.
To this end, the DICT and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) ordered telcos and ISPs to submit their respective roll-out plans for 2021 for easier compliance and progress monitoring.
Moreover, further positive developments in internet speed are in the works as DITO Telecommunity commercially launched its services in select areas of Visayas and Mindanao last March 8, 2021. The intensified market competition is expected to continually improve the country’s global standing in terms of internet speed in the coming months. (DICT)
