Assignment for PUBLISH A53

1. THE PAST TWO DECADES
OF PHILIPPINE INTERNET
Iris Gutierrez

2. First Decade
• March 1994 – The Philippines officially becomes a
part of the Global Internet
• March 1995 – The Public Telecommunications Act
of the Philippines is signed into law
• January 1996 – The country’s first search engine,
G-spot, is launched by Global Systems
Interconnect, Inc.
• August 1997 – Satellite communications in the
country Satellite technology now links Metro
Manila government stations to all regions of the
country.
• October 1998 – Cable TV operator Destiny Cable
launches cable Internet service.

3. First Decade
• May 1999 – Digitel becomes first phone company
to directly offer Net access.
• January 2000 – Sky Cable offers dial-up Net
access.
• March 2001 – Smart Communications launches
GPRS service.
• May 2001 – Two former employees of THAMES
International School (TIS) become the first to be
charged for hacking, piracy, and theft under the E-Commerce
Act.
• April 2003 – Photo Blogging makes use of
cameras on MMS (Multi Messaging Service)
cellular phones to send pictures to websites such
as “Blogs”.

4. Second Decade
• From 2004-2014, the Philippine Internet has continued
evolving.
• In the last 10 years, 2G, 3G and 4G have been made
available to mobile devices by the different service
providers such as Smart Communications and Globe
Telecom.
• The Philippines currently has eight submarine cables that
provides connectivity between the Philippines and the rest
of the world.
• PLDT and Globe Telecom provide fiber-based Internet that
can go up to 150 Mbit/s.
• According to the to the crowd-sourced Net Index
(www.netindex.com) rankings by internet broadband testing
company Ookla, the Philippines has the slowest average

5. Sources
• http://www.interaksyon.com/infotech/philippin
e-internet-connection-turns-20-years-old-this-month
• https://ph.news.yahoo.com/timeline-philippine-
internet-20th-anniversary-
225454753.html
• http://ww2.aijc.com.ph/PCCF/mediamuseum/t
imeline/timeline-cyber.htm
• http://submarinenetworks.com/stations/asia/p
hilippines
• http://technology.inquirer.net/37815/ph-slowest-
internet-speed-in-asean