Manila still lags in internet speed, quality

MANILA, Philippines — Manila is still one of the poorest cities in Asia-Pacific to connect to the internet, ranking in the lower half of the region for reliability and consistency.

In an analysis published by Opensignal, Manila scored 820 on a scale of 100 to 1,000, with 1,000 being the highest, in terms of reliability experience for mobile connectivity.

As such, Manila ended up 13th out of 18 cities in Asia-Pacific for this measure, running behind its regional counterparts Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Auckland and Mumbai.

Opensignal assesses reliability experience by looking at how successful users were able to finish basic tasks over their mobile networks. These tasks include watching standard definition videos, making over-the-top voice calls and browsing the web.

Further, Opensignal gave Manila a score of 58 percent for consistent quality, putting the city 14th out of 18 in the region. Almost the same cities outperformed Manila in this index, with the addition of Phnom Penh.

For this one, Opensignal measures if the network is sufficient enough to support mobile apps at a standard rate.

Moreover, Manila appears to be struggling in scaling up its 5G coverage when compared to other cities in the region, as the city recorded a 5G availability of just 17.3 percent.

On the contrary, Mumbai turned in a 5G availability of 49.4 percent to clinch the highest spot in Asia-Pacific, followed by Seoul’s 42.3 percent and Kuala Lumpur’s 42.2 percent.

Based on Opensignal’s assessment, Manila also has the third slowest 5G download speed in the region, at 147.1 Mbps, only beating Bangkok’s 96.2 Mbps and Jakarta’s 59.6 Mbps. Seoul posted the regional best at 453.5 Mbps, ahead of Auckland’s 293.3 Mbps and Singapore’s 270 Mbps.

Manila also placed last on 5G upload speed, at 14.8 Mbps, signifying the need for the city to raise its network infrastructure. Again, Seoul topped the measure with 55.4 Mbps, while Kuala Lumpur came next with 33.5 Mbps, with Taipei right behind at 33.3 Mbps.

“Seoul continues to dominate 5G speeds across Asia-Pacific, topping both download and upload rankings as it did in Opensignal’s previous city benchmarking report in 2022,” Opensignal said.

5G offers subscribers faster speeds and lower latency than 4G, meaning games run smoother, websites load quicker, among others.