Rwanda, 137 other countries have faster broadband than PHL

In terms of average Internet broadband download speed alone, the Philippines lags behind roughly two-thirds of the world. The country is bested not just by world superpowers such as China and the US, it is also surpassed by small countries such as Lithuania and Kenya. The Philippines ranks 139 out of 185 countries. Why does this matter? Access to affordable high-speed Internet is a key to economic growth and job creation in developing countries, according to the World Bank. The Bank found that "for every 10 percentage-point increase in high-speed Internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points." That could mean that laggard nations that quickly build capacity for broadband can swiftly catch up with others, and that the Philippines could be missing another opportunity to create more jobs and keep its talented workers home. Even the small African nation of Rwanda, with a population of just 9 million, a per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) of just US$506, and still recovering from a recent history of genocide, has an average broadband speed of 10.1Mbps —more than six times that of the Philippines' paltry 1.5Mbps. The fastest average broadband speed on record is in South Korea —a country well-known for its online gaming culture— at a blazingly fast 37.1Mbps. Trailing just behind South Korea are the small European countries of Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Romania, with average speeds above 23Mbps. These diminutive states even outpaced by leaps and bounds superpowers like Russia (11.8Mbps), the US (4.66Mbps) and China (3.3Mbps). The Philippines also has a long way to go in terms of Internet penetration. The Philippines' 29.7 percent Internet penetration rate is the highest among all countries with the same or comparable average Internet speed. In other words, whatever you may think of Philippine broadband service, more Filipinos have to put up with it than their counterparts in other countries with similar services. India and Indonesia, both of which lead most of the world in internet usage through business process outsourcing and social media use, are almost at par with the Philippines in terms of broadband speed but lag far behind in terms of penetration. India has an average speed of 1.4Mbps and a penetration rate of just 6.9 percent, while Indonesia has a 1.2Mbps average speed and 12.3 percent penetration. Information on penetration rates in the above infographic is from Internet World Stats, while broadband speeds were taken from SpeedTest.net. All other metrics are from the latest World Bank statistics. To improve visibility in the chart and differentiation between countries, GDP per capita has been presented in a logarithmic instead of linear scale. You can view the raw collated data here. Late last year, the Philippines' National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) caused quite a stir when it came out with a draft memorandum order that, if approved, would allow local telecommunications companies to put a cap on the amount of data that users are allowed to download per day. You may get in touch with the author via Twitter at @tjdimacali. — with Wayne Manuel, GMANews.TV