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MANILA, Philippines – Makati City Representative Luis Campos is pushing for the passage of a bill that will impose a daily fine of P1 million, or up to P365 million per year, on telecommunications companies that fail to reach mandatory internet speed targets.
“Clearly, we still have one of the slowest internet speeds in the world and in Asia … Filipinos deserve faster internet speeds, which have been associated with higher economic productivity, higher job creation, and better quality of life, “Campos said in a statement Sunday. .
This, as it cited the need for Congress to empower the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) so that it can set mandatory deadlines for industry players to provide faster Internet speeds.
Under House Bill No. 7479, which Campos introduced last August, telecommunications companies that do not meet mandatory Internet speed targets will be fined 1 million pesos per day until they achieve compliance.
“We want the NTC to set faster internet speed targets each year and then penalize service providers that don’t comply,” Campos said.
The legislator drew attention to his bill after a global speed test recently revealed that the Philippines ranks 110th out of 139 countries in terms of mobile data speed, averaging 18.49 megabits per second ( Mbps) as of November 2020.
While this is an improvement compared to the November 2019 country record of 17.15 Mbps, the Philippines still lags behind neighboring countries.
“Among the 10 member countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), for example, our average mobile Internet speed is ranked as the second slowest,” Campos noted.
“In fact, our 18.49 Mbps represents only 60 percent of the average mobile Internet speed of 30.94 Mbps across all ASEAN members,” he added.
“We are more concerned about mobile Internet speed because an overwhelming majority of Filipinos now access the web through their smartphones through their cell phone service provider,” the legislator further said.
In July, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to expropriate the assets of private telecommunications companies if they failed to improve their internet services before the end of the year.
/ MUF
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