Philippines climbs 4 spots in connectivity index 

The Philippines has climbed four places in a global index for connectivity quality, as the country improved its mobile speed to make up for the gap against Asia-Pacific peers.

Based on Opensignal’s Global Network Excellence Index, the Philippines rose four spots to 71st out of 138 economies in the second quarter on better consistency and quality of mobile services.

However, the Philippines remains in the bottom half when placed in Asia-Pacific, at 13th among 18 economies, only better than Cambodia, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

Between April and June, the Philippines increased its 4G and 5G availability to 91.8 percent and excellent consistent quality to 53.3 percent. Availability refers to the frequency of time that users are connected to 4G and 5G, while quality measures how networks support demanding functions.

Likewise, the country raised its 4G download speed by 0.5 Mbps to 25.1 Mbps and 5G download speed by 3.7 Mbps to 144.5 Mbps. Telcos are investing heavily in expanding their 5G coverage, supporting the demand for better connectivity in the digital era.

Further, the Department of Information and Communications Technology plans to instruct telcos to retire 2G and 3G networks to compel Filipinos to migrate to 4G and 5G services.

In Asia-Pacific, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia stood out as connectivity leaders by turning in some of the region’s best numbers for availability, quality and speed.

South Korea clocked in a region-leading 99.5-percent availability and 86.7-percent quality, with 4G and 5G speeds averaging 75.9 Mbps and 458.5 Mbps, respectively.

Among Philippine telcos, Opensignal said Dito Telecommunity Corp. beat industry leaders Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc. in availability and quality. Dito registered a score of 99.01 percent on availability, backed by its all-5G network.

Moreover, Dito scored 62.2 percent in quality, showing that its users are able to complete digital tasks without delay. Globe ranked second in both availability and quality, attaining 94.13 percent and 54.23 percent, respectively.

Globally, Opensignal said telcos are starting to shut their legacy networks to reallocate spectrum for better connectivity through 4G and 5G.

In particular, Opensignal said countries and territories like Oman, Macau and Jamaica are turning off their 3G networks for 5G expansion, showing that the Philippines is taking the right trend in its plan to do the same.