[rebelpixel]

Filipino internet user here. Can at least say that 10 hours a day for most Filipinos seem accurate enough—most people here are connected to FB Messenger via telcos' free FB promos. And a lot of Filipinos use Facebook like a realtime social lobby, replying to comments and status updates almost instantly.

Sadly though, most of the data probably applies to Filipinos in Metro Manila and developed cities, and there's still a huge part of the population that do not have access to the internet or even basic services like 24-hour electricity.

[apostacy]

I visited the Philippines recently, and was shocked at how non-neutral it was. ISPs have promotions like "free half an hour of YouTube per day". It is like the nightmare scenario that we in the rest of the world were warned about.

Worse, someone told me that in 2012, internet service was way better, but then they realized they could just throttle everyone down and jack the prices up.

And I also had to have a Globe and Smart SIM cards, since the two cellphone companies have a cartel.

I loved it there, but it is a shame about the infrastructure.

[axaxs]

You're right, but it's not about throttling, it's about subsidies. Regardless, data is about a dollar a gig, which is among the cheapest in the world. The fact is, folks don't want to or more likely, can't afford it, so the subsidized plans are more popular.

[apostacy]

Really?? Because I and my companions had a huge problem with data. The only plans we could find were for things like 700M for "general use data", and the remaining for different websites. It was expensive and slow. We weren't in Manilla we were in rural areas mostly.

[axaxs]

Yeah, I've been there a lot over the past few years. The problem to me is that there's too many different 'promos' at any given time, much like what you mentioned. But there's always been a 1 gig, 3 day load for 50 pesos from smart and globe.

[kaetemi]

The throttling only occurs on 'unlimited' plans. Just paying per GB here, and my mobile data speed peaks generally around 10 to 50 Mbps.

[apostacy]

After seeing The Philippines, I don't see how anyone can argue against net neutrality...