Senior citizen Mayette Igon-Igon, a resident of North Caloocan, is one of the estimated five million new home broadband subscribers in the country who shifted from mobile broadband to fiber internet services when the country was placed under strict community quarantine to prevent the spread of coronavirus diseases (COVID-19).
It was in March 2020 when Igon-Igon’s household of 11 family members finally decided to avail of a fixed line service to save cost as the usual P50 per gigabit mobile service was no longer enough to meet the internet requirements at home.
As her daughter has to work from home, her grandchildren need to join online classes and attend online meetings – on top of the usual pastime of watching videos, playing online games, video calls and checking social media sites – Igon-Igon knew the family required stable internet connection.
At Igon-Igon’s house, at least 13 devices are connected to the internet simultaneously on a daily basis, with usual downtime during peak hours.
But this is still manageable as the connection will eventually revert to normal after a few minutes.
Despite the usual downtime experience, Igon-Igon has no plan to upgrade their broadband plan as it will be an additional expense for her family. Fortunately, her family had a free internet speed upgrade last November from 35 megabits per second (mbps) and the household now enjoys 50 mbps at the same monthly fee of over P1,500.
Shift to fiber
Edgardo Cabarios, National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) deputy commissioner, said more households are expected to subscribe to home fiber service this year as this provides a more stable internet connection compared to radio or mobile broadband which is subject to signal interferences.
Fiber connectivity provides more reliable broadband service, enabling customer access to high-speed internet for work, education and entertainment, further improving customer experience.
Data from the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) showed during pre-pandemic or end 2019, the country’s broadband fixed wireless and fixed line subscribers stood at 4.3 million and mobile subscribers stood 167 million.
By 2020, the number of home broadband users significantly increased by 84 percent to 7.9 million compared to the previous year. It also further increased to 9 million subscribers by end September 2021 based on the combined data released by PLDT Inc. Globe Telecom Inc. and third player Converge ICT Solution Inc.
There are more telecom players competing in home broadband compared to mobile, so “they are aggressive (in their rollout)” said Cabarios.
Home broadband penetration is now close to 50 percent but the potential for growth is huge. This is because the number of households shifting to home broadband is increasing while others avail fiber services from multiple networks.
Race for speed
Cabarios said the growth of mobile broadband users is expected to slow down as more households connect to the fiber.
The average speed of fixed broadband is faster than mobile, according to Cabarios, citing a report of Ookla.
Ookla’s speedtest global index recent report showed the country’s fixed broadband speed improved to 50.26 mbps in December from the 46.44 mbps registered in November 2021.
The latest download speed signifies an 8.22 percent month-to-month and a 9-notch improvement in global ranking for fixed broadband.
Mobile speed also increased as the country yielded a download speed of 19.20 mbps in December last year from 18.68 mbps the month before. The latest download speed signifies a 2.78 percent month-to-month increase in speed for mobile.
The speed represents an improvement of 535.4 percent and 158 percent for fixed broadband and mobile, respectively, since the Duterte administration began in July 2016.
Based on global ranking, Philippine fixed broadband speed now ranks 63rd out of 178 countries while mobile speed ranks 89th out of 138 countries according to Ookla.
