By: Jerome Auza
Discussions with the “slow” Internet speeds in the country would immediately make some people curse at our telco operators. “My connection is slow!”, “I’d be lucky if I can open my favorite website during peak hours.”, “The modem keeps disconnecting.”, “Speed test is only a few KBPS.”
But what do we really need? More bandwidth or better reliability of service?
Unfortunately for most of us, our service contracts with the telcos state “Minimum of 10% of subscribed speed at 80% reliability where available”. So you could be paying for 2MBPS but the commitment of the telco is only 200kbps. And you are signing a contract where it is okay that your connection is down one day a week or 4 hours a day or one minute every five minutes.
I had an opportunity to point this matter to Sen. “Bam” Aquino who was in Bohol on September 4, 2015 to open the Negosyo Center inside the Bohol Investment Promotions Center office at the Provincial Capitol. During his breakfast meeting with the Bohol Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I asserted that 80% reliability is not enough. And given we only have two telcos, even if you subscribe to both providers, at 80% reliability each, there is still a significant chance that both providers would be down in a given period.
Is the problem bandwidth or reliability? My take on this is that the main problem is reliability. Take for example one of my work requirements which is to connect via SSH to a remote server in the US. When I’m using 3G or LTE service and I’m idle for about a minute, the connection would terminate. When I do the speed test, I get 6MBPS. So why is my SSH session disconnected frequently?
On a trip to Taiwan last year, I needed to connect to the US server remotely while we were traveling from Taipei to Hsinchu, about 100kms away. Using 3G service from one of the Taiwanese telcos, we traveled the entire distance without a single disconnect. If you think about it, I have been handed over to several cell sites as we traveled but the remote connection wasn’t disconnected even once. When I did the speed test, I got about 4MBPS.
So why is it that in the Philippines with my 3G service showing more “speed”, it feels much slower than in Taiwan which as slower “speed”?
The answer is reliability. Because the service there was much more reliable, I am able to open pages much quicker and I don’t have to reconnect again and again to complete the work I have to do. Websites load much quicker if the browser doesn’t have to repeat requests frequently.
How do we compare in terms of reliability commitments by telcos in other countries? I’ll try to answer this question in a coming article. I already got a copy of a service contract from a UK company and they are offering at least 99% reliability. If you have a copy of service contracts of providers in other countries, please give me a link or a copy to <a mailto:info@auza.net>info@auza.net</a>.
