Philippines shows improvements in 5G technology adoption

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has emerged as the most improved country globally when it comes to video experience in 5G compared to 4G, and came second when it comes to 5G download speed improvement, according to international analytics firm Opensignal.

Opensignal in its latest insight analysis showed the country posted a 5G video experience improvement of 40 percent, beating Thailand which placed second with a 29 percent improvement.

On the other hand, the country ranked second behind Thailand in 5G download speed improvement with  an increase of 10.1 times   versus 4G.

Data collection period for the analysis was from Oct. 1 to Dec. 29 last year.

“Emerging markets see some of the biggest jumps in mobile experience with 5G. In Thailand, our mobile users see 5G download speed 13.4 times faster than the 4G download speed – the greatest increase in the world – with Philippines second with 10.1 times and Saudi Arabia third,” Opensignal lead analyst Ian Fogg said.

“For video experience, the top two places are reversed. Philippines sees a 5G video experience that’s 40 percent higher than 4G video experience, with Thailand second on 29 percent better, and Hong Kong third with an improvement of 14 percent,” Fogg said.

The Philippines’ 5G download speed of 117.2 Mbps, however, is still very far behind that of other countries.

South Korea leads globally in 5G download speed with 354.4 Mbps, followed by UAE and Taiwan with 292.2 Mbps and 272.2 Mbps, respectively.

Completing the to 10 countries are Saudi Arabia, Australia, Kuwait, Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, and Thailand, all of which have average 5G download speeds of over 150 Mbps.

“5G is still near the beginning of its decade-long era. No mobile technology stands still, so we must continue to analyze the real-world experience and see how it changes and improves,” Fogg said.

“In most countries, operators have, to date, launched just the very first version of the 5G standard using a single wireless 5G frequency band. But in others we’ve seen operators start to move ahead by offering 5G on multiple spectrum bands, or use mmWave technologies to offer extremely fast speeds. While in other countries, most notably in the Americas and parts of South-East Asia, operators have initially been constrained by the limited availability of 5G-suitable spectrum,” Fogg said.