Philippines ranks 7th in Southeast Asia internet resilience index

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines ranked seventh in Southeast Asia in terms of internet resilience, with country’s internet infrastructure “particularly high”.

The Philippines scored 46% in the Internet Resilience Index released Tuesday by global non-profit organization Internet Society.

The new index, which covers 170 countries, is the first of its kind, Internet Society said. The group explained that a resilient internet connection is "one that maintains an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation.”

At seventh spot regionally, the Philippines is behind Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, and just ahead of Myanmar (45%), Cambodia (43%) and Laos PDR (42%).

“The country’s infrastructure is ranked particularly high, with good, fixed line coverage not often seen in island nations,” Internet Society said.

“Further, the security score reveals a high HTTPS adoption, which is above average for the region,” it added.

Broken down, the Philippines scored 48% both in terms of internet infrastructure and performance, which assesses the ability of the nation’s networks to provide end-users with seamless and reliable access to internet services.

But Internet Society said the mobile performance (29%) in the Philippines was well below the country’s fixed network performance (76%), indicating an opportunity for improvement given the high reliance on mobile.

The Philippines scored 54% in terms of security. HTTPS adoption is high at 82% and so is the country’s MANRS score (80%), indicating an above average commitment to encryption and routing security.

Lastly, the country scored 35% in terms of market readiness, with both affordability (64%) and market diversity (42%) healthy and indicative of “good competition in the country”.

“Decision-makers in the Philippines can use this snapshot to understand the strength and weaknesses in their Internet ecosystem and make data-driven decisions regarding where to invest and improve the country’s overall resilience,” Internet Society said.