- NTC conducts initial speed test on five major Internet service providers
- None of the ISPs actually lived up to their advertised Internet speeds
- NTC, however, says hands tied due to lack of mandated guaranteed minimum Internet speed
MANILA, Philippines – Even as Filipinos continue to suffer from the country’s snail-paced Internet speeds, the National Telecommunications Communications (NTC) announced the results of its initial test speed conducted on Internet service providers (ISPs) PLDT/Smart, Sky Cable, Bayan, and Globe.
The result? None of them gave out the Internet speeds they advertised.
According to the test which sampled 36 subscribers — including the office of House Speaker Sonny Belmonte — of fixed Internet set-ups, Globe achieved only 82.44 percent of its promised Internet speed followed by PLDT/Smart with 74.73 percent.
The other two, Sky Cable and Bayan, reached only 63.60 and 57.17 percent of their promised Internet speed respectively.
NTC officials were not pleased with the results.
“Of course we are not satisfied. They need to improve their performance,” NTC Deputy Commissioner Delilah Deles told ABS-CBN.
At the same time, Deles said the test results were still inconclusive due to the small size of the sample taken. She encouraged subscribers to volunteer and get their Internet speeds checked in the next round of tests so they can get a more-conclusive result.
For his part, Deles’ fellow Deputy Commissioner Edgardo Cabarios said the telecommunications regulator cannot really punish the ISPs due to the absence of a mandated guaranteed minimum Internet speed.
As of the moment, he said they can only advise the telco companies to advertise the average speed of their services.
To the consolation of fed-up consumers, he added they can still file a case against their ISP for false advertising under the Consumer Act before the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
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