Why are there very few remaining ISPs in the Philippines?

One of the reasons why we experience a sorry state of internet in the Philippines is because of the lack of competition. The number of local players have been reduced to just 2 big parties, and a few smaller ones. Over a decade ago, when dial-up was still thriving, it was the major technology that enabled households to connect to the internet. There were hundreds of domestic internet service providers.

This was the question answered by Miguel Paraz in a thread on Quora:

When my partners and I started our ISP in 1995, the 64 Kbps leased line to the US was $10,000/month! So given inflation, it would be much more now. So we had to squeeze in a lot of users into that line. A lot of the stuff I worked on was to maximize our company’s investment, like how to measure the Internet usage for dialups, and web proxy caching.

Why are there only 2-3 ISPs now – because they are the telcos. Who dominate by owning the infrastructure. Back then 20 years ago, the telcos did not know about the Internet so independent ISPs could buy leased lines to the US ISPs and then domestic leased lines and dialup lines for customers. Then it became a threat and they became serious. The telcos started to become further integrated into the telco infrastructure when DSL became the norm because an ordinary company could not operate DSL infrastructure. They also started buying larger international lines and selling IP transit to companies and other ISPs, with economies of scale that were unavailable to non-telco companies.

So the 2000s were the period of consolidation when the non-telco ISPs were being killed. This was also the time when internet data centers were starting to become a thing, but that didn’t really take off and now with IaaS is largely obsolete.

What struck us was that a dedicated line to the US was $10,000 for a guaranteed 64Kbps. We guess that price has gone done in the last 20 years but once can only imagine how much a 1Gbps will cost per month these days.

In any case, it looks like any new player in the ISP business will require a lot of money in order to compete with the existing ones. Or else, they will have to ride on the backbone of PLDT or Globe.

You can read more about these below:

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

9 Comments

Browse says:

9 years ago

Dito ako nakatira sa isla ni Mastet Boten, buti na lang ang Kame House may installed internet galing kay Bulma at Capsule Corp.
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bajigjig says:

9 years ago

korny mo p***

pasmado75 says:

9 years ago

Wala bang proofreader ang yugatech?
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Just Sayin' says:

9 years ago

I was thinking the same thing

BIKTIMA KAMI LAHAT NG SUN CELLULAR says:

9 years ago

I STILL REMEMBER HOW VERY GOOD SERVICE SUN CELLULAR USED TO PROVIDE… NOW WITH SMART, BULOK NA BULOK NA SIGNAL & SERVICE NILA… ON TOP, THEY OBVIOUSLY BECAME STINKING LIARS & THEIVES… AFTER DECEIVING SUBSCRIBERS, ALL THEY WANTED IS THEIR PAYMENTS… TO HELL WITH THEIR SERVICE!!!

SUN CELLULAR: “CHOOSE BITTER… SIKAT SA PANLOLOKO!!!”

THEY R NO LONGER HUMAN!!!
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MVP_Sakim says:

9 years ago

Lahat ng negosyo na hinawakan ni Manny Pangilinan naging ganyan. Mandurugas, maninipsip ng dugo ng mga Pilipino. Ganid sa salapi. Tingnan na lang ang Meralco, Maynilad, Smart, etc.

phillip says:

9 years ago

We need more submarine cables specifically fiber optic coming into the Philippines.
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Mindy R. says:

9 years ago

Local Loop Unbundling allows thrid parties without their own networks to offer broadband/dsl services using the incumbent telco’s infrastructure for a fee, of course.

Link is a good explanation and how it is done in Germany where the incumbent telco is Deutsche Telecom. https://www.telekom.com/media/media-kits/regulation/170468
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hee hee says:

9 years ago

There are still a plenty of small LEC and cable providers in the regions. Unfortunately, they have very limitd IP capacity leased from either globe or pldt. Some with just a few mbps. You might be surprised to learn that some just have around 30 or 40mbps that they resell to their own subs. I think they can thrive if the govt will build up multiple IXs per region. And govt will provide the meshed backbone to a main IX.
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