Speeding Up Internet Access In The Philippines

Internet or the net had its debut in the late 1960’s for the world of computers linking information hubs across time and distance. It resulted to a gamut of limitless information and entertainment; and offered know-what and know-how services that made life convenient. It is the largest technological innovation of the century.

Internet in the Philippines enabled BPO industries to earn a revenue of $25 billion in 2016.  It afforded Filipinos in the urban areas the capacities of social network, online transactions, and e-business to name a few.    

In the height of patronage is the striking reality of slow internet speed in the Philippines. State of the Internet Q4 2016 Report of Akamai showed that the Philippines ranked 108 globally in terms of internet speed, lagging behind its neighboring countries in the Southeast Asia. An average of 4.5Mbps is utilized for IPv4. From the 1,545,711 IPv4 connections in the country, only 3.6% has the speed of above 15Mbps.

Slow speed internet in the Philippines is associated with several problems including topography, service infrastructure, lack of competition with internet service providers (ISPs), peering and local exchange, appropriate legislation, and government support. Among these, the key factors that highly affect high speed internet access are topography and service infrastructures. Several advancements were already done by ISPs that include upgrading to fiber optic connections and adopting the Time Division Duplexing-Long Term Evolution (TDD-LTE) scheme.  The major telecommunication companies in the Philippines have invested heavily on these upgrades.

Fiber to the Home (FTTH)

Telecommunication companies in the Philippines added more than 9,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable to their existing fiber optic cable infrastructure. The purpose is to bring fiber to the home (FTTH).  It is the installation and use of fiber optic cables from a local exchange directly to subscribers. This provides high-speed internet access up to 100 Mbps.

FTTH networks are categorized into Home Run (point to point, P2P) and Star (point to multi-point, P2MP) architectures. Star architecture is further classified as passive and active.

In Home Run connection or P2P, individual fibers run from the central office to each subscriber. This architecture needs multiple fibers which entails high installation costs.   The central office needs more floor space and power to cater all the fiber terminals at homes.  However, P2P provides the ultimate capacity and most flexibility for customers individually.

In Active Star Architecture, a single fiber carries all traffic to an active node close to the subscribers. The single feeder fiber reduces the installation costs. However, since it is an active device, it still needs powering and maintenance. It also needs to withstand  wider range of temperatures than in-door equipment. This feeder or active node may be in a cabinet at the street curb site or in the basement of building from where the communication traffic is run at the speed of 100 Mbps.

In Passive Star Architecture, the active node is replaced by a passive optical power splitter/combiner that feeds the individual short branching fibers to the subscribers. Because the feeder is a passive device, installation, powering and maintenance costs are lowered. This topology, commonly known as passive optical network (PON) has become the very popular architecture for introduction of optical fiber into access networks used in the Philippines. During its pilot test, download speeds of up to 94.86 Mbps and upload rates of 69.39 Mbps were obtained. As of 2015, the maximum plan for FTTH connection is now at 100Mbps.

Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A)

Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) is a technology used in fourth generation (4G) mobile communication with two duplexing modes, the Time Division Duplexing (TDD-LTE) and the Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD-LTE). Consideration on data traffic in mobile technology comprised of uplink and downlink is the primary difference between the two modes.  In FDD-LTE, two carrier frequencies are used, one for uplink transmission and one for downlink transmission while in TDD-LTE a single carrier frequency is used for both uplink and downlink transmissions separated in the time domain on a cell. With the switch between downlink and uplink occurring in the special sub-frame, some sub-frames are allocated for uplink transmissions and some sub-frames for downlink transmission.

Telecommunication companies are continuously upgrading its network and expanding its TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE footprints to enhance the speed of data transfer, provide lower latency, and increase overall network capacity. More than 5,000 FDD and TDD cell sites were added since 2016.

While cost may be a primary disadvantage, the big challenge in maintaining and improving internet speed lies on whether telecommunication companies in the Philippines will continuously upgrade their facilities and adopt techniques on bandwidth distribution to improve communication traffic and congestions.  Individual consumers can help by moderate use of the internet. 

Fiber optic technology and LTE services have abated the qualms about slow internet connection.  However, infrastructure alone cannot give the demand for consistent pace.  This calls for synergistic solutions such as peering and local exchange, competition among ISPs,  appropriate legislation, government support, and well-ordered internet consumption.