Solon seeks P1M daily fine vs telcos that miss internet speed targets

MANILA, Philippines — Makati City Rep. Luis Campos is pushing for the passage of a bill that will impose a P1-million daily fine, or as much as P365 million per year, on telecommunication companies that will fail to hit mandatory internet speed targets.

“We clearly 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, stronger jobs creation and greater quality of life,” Campos said in a statement on Sunday.

This, as he cited the need for Congress to empower the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) so that it can set compulsory deadlines for industry players to deliver faster internet speeds.

Under House Bill No. 7479, which Campos filed last August, telco firms that fail to reach the mandatory internet speed targets will be slapped with a fine of P1 million per day until they achieve compliance.

“We want the NTC to set faster internet speed targets every year, and then penalize the service providers that fail to deliver,” Campos said.

The lawmaker called 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, with an average of 18.49 megabits per second (Mbps) as of November 2020.

While this is an improvement compared to the country’s November 2019 record of 17.15 Mbps, the Philippines still lags behind neighboring countries.

“Among the 10 member countries of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), for instance, our average mobile internet speed is ranked the second-slowest,” Campos pointed out.

“In fact, our 18.49 Mbps represents just 60 percent of the 30.94 Mbps average mobile Internet speed 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 via their cellular telephone service provider,” the lawmaker further said.

In July, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to expropriate the assets of private telecommunications firms if they will fail to improve their internet services by year-end.

/MUF