CHICKENPIE.The Philippines is almost ready for the AI future. Almost. By “almost,” I mean we’re uploading at 11.97 megabits per second when we need 20.
Every telco ran a 5G ad. The ads had holograms. The ads had a woman running through light trails. The woman was fast. Our median upload speed is not.
Here’s the number that should embarrass someone: 11.97 Mbps. That’s the median 5G upload speed in the country. The minimum for augmented reality — the basic, entry-level AR, not even the fancy kind — is 20 Mbps. We are not in the vicinity of 20. We are not on the same street as 20. We are 8 Mbps from even getting to the table where 20 is sitting.
The pitch was: 5G unlocks AI. The reality is: 5G unlocks slightly faster loading of the same Instagram. We are the country that builds call centers for AI companies, trains their models on our night shifts, runs their customer service operations, and then cannot render the products those companies make because we are 8 megabits short.
This is not the internet’s fault. This is the gap between the press release and the actual SIM card in your pocket. The announcement said 5G. The download speed said “let’s not be dramatic about this.”
The telecom sector gets to say “5G available nationwide” while the fine print says “conditions apply and by conditions we mean the laws of physics.”
Meanwhile, every government agency has announced their AI initiative. The chatbot is coming. The smart city is coming. The digital transformation task force released a PDF. It is 11 pages. The PDF loaded fine. That’s the only thing loading fine.
So yes — the AI future is coming. We are ready for it. We are loading it right now. Please wait. Estimated time: 8 megabits per second.
