The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has expressed confidence that Internet speeds in the country will further improve.
DICT Undersecretary Emmanuel Rey Caintic said Monday, June 21, that Filipinos will have much faster Internet speeds for as long as telecommunications companies continue to improve their services.
“Pataas lang ng pataas ‘yan for as long as mapapatuloy natin ‘yung mga pagpadagdag ng mga kable at mga tore ng ating mga telco provider (That will only keep going up for as long as we telco providers continue to add more cables and towers,” Caintic said in a public briefing.
The official said the DICT is helping telco providers to fast-track the rollout of more cables and towers to further expand their coverage.
Last week, the DICT said that the Philippines’ average Internet speeds continue to “surge upward” as the country further climbed in the global internet speeds rankings.
Based on the latest report of global Internet speed monitoring firm Ookla Speedtest, the Philippines climbed the global rankings from the 80th spot to the 65th spot out of 180 countries in fixed broadband, and from the 84th spot to the 77th spot out of 137 countries in mobile.
The Ookla reported that the fixed broadband download speed in the country was clocked at 58.73 megabits per second (Mbps) in May, with an upload speed of 57.40 Mbps.
On the other hand, country’s mobile download speed was at 31.98 Mbps while the upload speed was recorded at 8.74 Mbps that same month.
The DICT said the latest figures translates to an improvement of 19.1 percent for fixed broadband and 9.8 percent for mobile internet speeds in the country, which had a 49.31 Mbps download speed for fixed broadband and 29.12 Mbps download speed for mobile in April.
“We recognize and laud the initiatives and tireless efforts of the members of the telecommunications and information service industries and the public sector in fostering and accelerating digital connectivity in the country,” DICT Secretary Gregorio “Gringo” B. Honasan II said in an earlier statement.
“The continuing challenge, especially in this time of COVID-19 crisis, is to provide both connectivity and quality of service to the people. To meet that challenge, we all need to unite, cooperate, engage, and work together—the industry, the national and local government, and the entire nation. The report shows good improvement, but so much more needs to be done,” he added.