Internet in the Philippines first became available on March 29, 1994, 10:18 a.m., with the Philippine Network Foundation (PHNet) connecting the country and its people to Sprint in the United States via a 64 kbit/s link.Miguel A. L. Paraz: Developing a Viable Framework for Commercial Internet Operations in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Philippine Experience. ISOC, INET 1997 As of February 2023, there are 85.16 million internet users in the country, where internet penetration stood at 73.1% of the total population.

History

Timeline The early history of the Internet in the Philippines started with the establishment of Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) by local computer hobbyists and enthusiasts. They were able to link their BBS's using a dial-up connection protocol enabling them to participate in discussion forums, send messages and share files.

1986: Establishment of first BBS in the Philippines, First-Fil RBBS a public-access BBS went online with an annual subscription fee of . A precursor to the local online forum, it ran an open-source BBS software on an IBM XT Clone PC with a 1200bit/s modem and was operated by Dan Angeles and Ed Castañeda.

1987: The Philippine FidoNet Exchange, a local network for communication between several BBSes in Metro Manila, was formed.

1990: A committee helmed by Arnie del Rosario of the Ateneo Computer Technology Center was tasked with exploring the possibility of creating an academic network of universities and government institutions by the National Computer Center under Dr. William Torres. Recommendations were made but not implemented.

1991–1993: Emergence of email gateways and services in the Philippines, including some from multinational companies like Intel, Motorola, and Texas Instruments, which used a direct Internet connection, X.25, or UUCP protocol. Local firms ETPI, Philcom, and PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company) also operated commercial X.25 networks. Another milestone: Local and international email to FidoNet users was introduced.

June 1993: With the support of the Department of Science and Technology and the Industrial Research Foundation, the Philnet project (now PHNET) was born. The Philnet technical committee, composed of computer buffs working at the DOST [MIS (Joseph Andres), PCASTRD (Merl Opena, Winnefredo Aggabao) and Advanced Science and Technology Institute (Miguel Dimayuga)] and representatives from the Ateneo de Manila University (Richie Lozada and Arnie del Rosario), De La Salle University (Kelsey Hartigan-Go), University of the Philippines Diliman (Rodel Atanacio), University of the Philippines Los Baños (Alfonso Carandang), Xavier University (Bombim Cadiz) and St. Louis University (Ian Generalao); would eventually play a significant role in connecting the Philippines to the global Internet."Villarica: The day the Philippines ‘discovered’ the world", Dr. Rodolfo M. Villarica, Newsbytes.ph, 05 April 2014.

July 1993: Phase one of the Philnet project shifted into full gear after receiving funding from the DOST. It proved to be successful, as students from partner universities were able to send emails to the Internet by routing them through Philnet's gateway at the Ateneo de Manila University, which was connected to another gateway at the Victoria University of Technology in Australia via IDD Dial-Up (Hayes Modem).

November 1993: An additional grant for the first year's running cost was awarded by the DOST to buy equipment and lease communication lines needed to kickstart the second phase of Philnet, now led by Dr. Rudy Villarica.

March 29, 1994, 1:15 a.m. (PHT): Benjie Tan, who was working for ComNet, a company that supplied Cisco routers to the Philnet project, linked the Philippines’ first set-up and installed initial Internet connection at a PLDT network center at Ramon Cojuangco Building, Makati. Shortly thereafter, he posted a short message to the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.filipino to alert Filipinos overseas that a link had been made. His message read: "As of March 29, 1994 at 1:15 am Philippine time, unfortunately 2 days late due to slight technical difficulties, the Philippines was FINALLY linked to the Internet via SprintLink. The Philippine router, a Cisco 7000 router, was attached via the services of PLDT and Sprint communications to SprintLink's router at Stockton Ca. The gateway to the world for the Philippines will be via NASA Ames Research Center. For now, a 64K serial link is the information highway to the rest of the Internet world."

March 29, 1994, "We're in!" – This announcement was made by Dr. John Brule, an American professor emeritus from Syracuse University, at exactly 10:18 A.M signifying that Philnet's 64 kbit/s Internet connection was live during the first International E-Mail Conference at the University of San Carlos in Talamban Campus, Cebu City. During the conference, they sent the nation's first email to STACnet and ran a live text-based Telnet connection to MIT.

2000: PLDT introduced its ADSL service.

August 8, 2009: The Congress of the Philippines granted Converge ICT's (then known as ComClark Network and Technology Corp.) franchise application to construct, install, establish, operate and maintain a telecommunication system throughout the country. Nine years after their franchise was granted, Converge ICT's coverage and service has matured enough to be a viable contender for the spot to becoming the 3rd major telecommunications company in the Philippines.

March 27, 2022: Satellite internet service provider Starlink received approval of its registration from the country's National Telecommunications Commission, setting the country as the first in Southeast Asia to have Starlink broadband service. This comes at the heels of the passage of Republic Act No. 11659 amending the Public Service Act passed in 1936. The amendment allows 100% foreign ownership of three primary public services which are telecommunications, airline, and railways.

October 10, 2024: Over 20 million Filipinos are set to enjoy better internet connectivity. The World Bank’s Digital Infrastructure Project for Philippines aims to improve climate resilient, secure and inclusive broadband connectivity. The project focuses on five components (i) backbone network, (ii) middle-mile network, (iii) access network (Last-Mile), (iv) network security, and (v) project management support. The project will focus on benefiting Filipinos outside the country’s main urban centres, where presently the connectivity is disproportionately concentrated.

Other developments A year after the connection, in March 1995, the "Public Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines" was made into law. The law allowed securing a franchise optional for value-added service providers; it also enabled many other organizations to establish connections to the Internet, to create Web sites, and have their own Internet services or provide Internet service and access to others.

Although the growth of the Internet in the Philippines was hindered by unequal distribution of Internet infrastructure throughout the country, its cost, and corruption in the government,Philippines – Public Access Landscape Study Research Team Emmanuel Lallana, University of Washington Center for Information & Society (CIS), 2009. these obstacles did not altogether halt all the developments. More connection types were made available to more Filipinos, and there is an increase in bandwidth and a growing number of Filipino Internet users.

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, codified as Republic Act No. 10175, criminalized cybersquatting, cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, illegal access to data, and libel.Republic Act No. 10175 , An Act Defining Cybercrime, Providing for the Prevention, Investigation, Suppression and the Imposition of Penalties therefor and for Other Purposes. Approved by President of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III on September 12, 2012, The act has been criticized for its provision on criminalizing libel, which is perceived to be a curtailment in freedom of expression. After several petitions submitted to the Supreme Court of the Philippines questioned the constitutionality of the Act, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on October 9, 2012, stopping the implementation of the Act for 120 days. A Magna Carta for Philippine Internet Freedom was filed in the Philippine legislature in 2013 to, among others, repeal Republic Act No. 10175."The Wisdom of Crowds: Crowdsourcing Net Freedom", Jonathan de Santos, Yahoo! News Philippines, 21 January 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2013. The Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10175 were promulgated on August 12, 2015.Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No 1017.

Through Republic Act No. 10929 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in August 2017, the Philippine government began providing free Internet in public places.

Statistics

In 2022, according to Datareportal and Statista, about two to three of four Filipinos in the Philippines have access to the internet.

Among the findings in this report were: 68% to 72% of Filipinos have access to the Internet, with Filipino users having the highest daily average online consumption duration in the Southeast Asia region at around 10 hours. Internet user growth is around 2.8% year-on-year. 97.2% of users rely on their mobile phones as one of the (or the only) ways they access the internet. In January 2024, there were 86.98 million internet users in the Philippines, with an internet penetration rate of 73.6 percent of the total population.

Wireless broadband

TD-LTE As the number of subscribers grew, both PLDT and Globe Telecom rapidly expanded their Time-Division Duplex-Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) services for Fixed Wireless Broadband. According to PLDT, they spent of its capital expenditure for 2013 to bring TD-LTE technology to customers’ homes. According to industry data, the Philippines’ TD-LTE network was one of the largest deployments in Asia Pacific with over 200 base stations and an allocated bandwidth of 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

In January 2015, both PLDT and Globe Telecom began phasing out WiMax services in favor for TD-LTE.

Bandwidth caps

In October 2015, PLDT introduced so-called "volume boosters" (instead of 30% bandwidth throttling in 2014 and 256 kbit/s bandwidth throttling in 2015) when exceeding monthly 30 GB to 70 GB bandwidth cap for TD-LTE connection plans (Ultera). "In case your usage exceeds your monthly volume allowance, you can still enjoy the internet by purchasing additional volume boosters. Otherwise, connectivity will be halted until your monthly volume is refreshed on your next billing cycle." Globe followed suit with a similar "volume boost" arrangement.

Lock-in period