THE Philippines now ranks No. 15 worldwide in the absolute number of internet users, with some 54-million Filipinos browsing the web or a penetration rate of 52 percent of the population, Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. said Sunday.
“There’s no question a growing number of Filipinos is relying increasingly on the internet not only for communication, information, education and entertainment, but also to earn a living by selling goods and services, to shop and to perform financial transactions from banking to paying bills,” Campos said in a statement.
“This is why Congress has to be highly responsive in classifying internet service as a basic telecommunications service. This way, regulators can actually do their job and assure every Filipino greater access to superior internet services including accelerating connection speeds.”
The top five countries with the highest number of internet users are China, 731.4 million; India, 462.1 million; the United States, 286.9 million; Brazil, 139.1 million; and Indonesia, 132.7 million, according to Internet World Stats.
Those that ranked just below the Philippines were Italy, with 51.8 million users; Vietnam, with 49.7 million; Turkey, with 46.1 million; South Korea, with 45.3 million; and Thailand with 41 million.
The figures were based on data from the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies, country reports and Facebook Inc. The figures were updated on March 31, 2017.
Campos has introduced a bill that seeks to distinguish the internet service as “a basic telecommunications service within the jurisdiction and regulatory power of the National Telecommunications Commission.”
“We have to enable the NTC to effectively protect and advance the rights and welfare of internet users,” Campos said.
The internet service is now regarded as a “value-added service,” making it out of the NTC’s reach when it comes to mandating minimum standards and improvements.
Akamai Technologies Inc.’s State of the Internet Report as of the first quarter of 2017 tagged the Philippines’ 5.5 Mbps average connection speed as the slowest in the Asia Pacific compared with Thailand’s 16 Mbps, Vietnam’s 9.5 Mbps, Malaysia’s 8.9 Mbps and Indonesia’s 7.2 Mbps.
Mbps is short for megabits per second, a measure of network transmission or data transfer speed. A megabit is equal to one million bits.
The Philippines ranks No. 100 worldwide in average connection speed. South Korea is No. 1 at 28.6 Mbps and Paraguay is No. 148 at 1.4 Mbps.
As proposed by Campos in House Bill 5337, internet service suppliers that fail to deliver escalating connection speeds within fixed deadlines face up to P100,000 in daily fines that could last up to 500 days, or reach up to ₱50 million, for every violation.
The bill also spares the NTC and its officers from possible civil proceedings with respect to any directives they may issue to ensure the performance of time-bound improvements in internet services.
The measure seeks to bring up to date the 22-year-old Public Telecommunications Policy Law of the Philippines, which makes no mention at all of the internet or internet services.