MANILA - Average mobile and fixed broadband speeds improved in the Philippines in January with the country's mobile internet speed moving 10 notches up in ranking, according to Ookla’s 2021 Speedtest Global Index.

Average mobile download speeds in the country reached 25.77 Mbps in January, up from 22.5 Mbps in December, putting the Philippines at no. 86 in a ranking of 140 countries.

Average fixed broadband download speeds meanwhile reached 32.73 Mbps in January from 31.44 Mbps in December, leaving the country's rank unchanged at 100th place.

The United Arab Emirates bagged the top spot in the mobile internet speed category, followed by South Korea.

Singapore ranked first in terms of fixed broadband speed followed by Hong Kong and Thailand.

Globe Telecom said its average mobile download speed improved 22 percent to 16.44 Mbps in Q4 of 2020 from 13.50 Mbps for the same period the previous year, citing the report.

“We are seeing the fruits of our massive efforts and investments towards network and service upgrades, and customers are able to feel improvements especially those who have started shifting to or have already moved to 4G LTE,” Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu said.

The aggressive cellular tower builds for telcos Globe and PLDT Inc has improved services in the country. Meanwhile, third telco DITO Telecommunity is also developing cell sites for its launch on March 8.

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DITO registered a minimum broadband speed of 507.5 Mbps for its 5G service, and 85.9 Mbps minimum speed for its 4G service, the National Telecommunications Commission earlier said.

The NTC however noted that there were no subscribers yet using DITO's network when the speed audit was conducted.

Despite improvements in mobile and fixed-line internet, broadband speeds in the Philippines were still below the global average.

Ookla said the global average download speed for mobile is 46.74 Mbps, and 96.98 Mbps for fixed-line.

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