Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Tuesday, November 8 urged telecommunications companies (Telcos) and internet service providers (ISPs) to improve their services.
Zubiri has filed Senate Bill 1381, or Better Internet Act, which requires all public telecommunications entities (telcos) and internet service providers (ISPs) to increase service coverage and deliver a minimum standard for internet connection speed in two years.
The Department of information and Communications Technology (DICT) will provide a household plan which areas should be provided with internet to be serviced by Telcos and ISPs.
The same bill also sought a minimum internet speed which should not be less than 20 megabits per second for wired broadband and 10 MPBS for wireless broadband in metropolitan cities.
Telcos and ISPs are directed not to advertise internet service speeds that are not consistent or could not be serviced regularly.
When enacted into law, the measure imposes fines of P200,000 to P2 million on Telcos and ISPs that do not comply with their obligations.
Zubiri said the demand for reliable and accessible Internet services in the Philippines has never been more pronounced than in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘’With the rapid shift to remote learning and telecommuting, we witnessed stories of teachers and students climbing roofs to get service or people struggling to attend an online meeting—proof of the difficulties of poor Internet coverage and quality of service. With the economy irreversibly transformed by digitalization, Filipinos continue to clamor for better Internet services,’’ he pointed out.
The Senate chief said a survey conducted by global IT firm Cisco showed 91 percent of workers believe the Philippines needs dramatic improvements in Internet quality,
"A study by the United Nations and the World Bank also found evidence that primary students experienced slow or little progress in such basic skills as reading and comprehension, due in part to many households lacking Internet access and relying instead on paper-based modules,’’ he added.
‘’While download speeds have gradually improved over the years, Ookla's Speedtest Global Index as of April 2022 shows that Internet speed in the country is still among the slowest in ASEAN-6.5 Open signal, which also measures broadband performance, found that in January 2022 many Filipinos still experienced poor data services, even with 4G and 5G,6 and experienced slower speeds than advertised,’’ he said.
Zubiri emphasized that poor performance on other important measures of Internet service quality, such as upload speeds, latency, jitter, and packet loss, which affect transmission of data also contribute to poor adoption of digital applications.