3G service in PH outpaces Japan’s in Q4 of 2015

The Philippines saw the quality of mobile Internet service improve by the end of 2015 as local telecommunication companies ramped up investments.

Citing the latest Asia Network Quality Report of JP Morgan Securities issued last month, Smart Communications said 3G mobile data download speed in the country increased to  2.09 Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2015 from 1.77 Mbps in the third quarter.

The report said the country even outpaced Thailand (1.46 Mbps), Japan (1.56 Mbps) and Hong Kong (2.05 Mbps). The report used crowd-sourced data gathered by wireless coverage research firm OpenSignal.

Among Philippine carriers, Smart Communications, a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.,  saw its download speed increase to 2.54 Mbps in the fourth quarter last year from 1.66 Mbps in the third quarter.

PLDT and Smart allocated P43 billion for capital expenditures in 2015, largely for their network infrastructure. The two companies expected to set aside a similar amount for 2016.

“We’ve paid specific attention to enhancing our 3G capacity and resiliency because about 90 percent of our subscribers who go online use 3G handsets.  Improving our 3G data service delivers immediate benefits to the largest number of people in our subscriber base,” Ariel P. Fermin, head of PLDT and Smart’s Consumer Group, said in the statement.

“At the same time, we are also building for the future.  So we continue to roll out our 4G/LTE network because we expect more and more people to start using 4G/LTE handsets,” he added.