Philippines still lags behind its Asian neighbors when it comes to the number of internet cell sites.
In a data presented by House Majority Floor Leader Danilo Suarez, the Philippines has only about 15,000 cell sites as of February 2016.
This figure prevails, even if the number of users in the Philippines has surged to 54 million users as of June last year.
The poor internet service in the country translates to economic loss of up to P 76 billion pesos each year, Suarez reports.
The small country of Vietnam has 55,000 cell sites, even if its users number to only 49 million.
Flood-prone Bangladesh has 27,000 cell sites being used by 63 million customers.
Japan has 220,000 cell sites and 115 million internet users.
Kabayan Party-list Representative Harry Roque says, both Globe and Smart cellular phone companies fail to provide good internet signal.
“Kahit dito sa Congress, pahirapan ang signal samantalang dito sila nagre-renew ng prangkisa (even here in Congress, the signal is very poor, even if it is here where they are renewing their franchises),” Roque laments. (A. Lim, MS)
