Enterprise
Singapore, S. Korea dominate 4G LTE rankings, Philippines struggles
Crowdsourced mobile data from OpenSignal revealed some interesting figures for the third quarter of 2016. Based on statistics published today, Singapore and South Korea have the best 4G data speeds and nationwide availability, respectively. Asian neighbors India, Indonesia, and the Philippines didn’t do nearly as well.
4G LTE connectivity is expanding at an exponential rate across the globe, and gradually eclipsing the older 3G technologies from a generation ago. Unfortunately, not every country is experiencing equal opportunities, and some are left wondering where all the bandwidth is going.
Singapore gets top honors for 4G speeds in the world, averaging a blistering 45.86 megabits per second (Mbps). This means you can wirelessly download files at 5.7 megabytes per second (MBps — notice the uppercase B). Remember that a megabyte is equal to eight megabits.
The city-state is followed closely by South Korea at 45.77Mbps, Hungary at 40.61Mbps, and Romania at 35.61Mbps. You have to go all the way down to 25.75Mbps to discover the next-fastest East Asian nation, Taiwan. How about high-tech Japan? Its citizens are enjoying 22.38Mbps.
Even though the majority of the included countries averaged more than 20Mbps, the global average is only 17.4Mbps. We can the blame the terribly low speeds of developing nations for dropping the number.
Indonesia, the Philippines, and India were particularly bad for Asia, averaging only 8.79Mbps, 7.27Mbps, and 6.39Mbps, respectively. It gets even more embarrassing when you combine the three, giving you a total of 22.45Mbps, just above the global norm.

For nationwide availability, OpenSignal doesn’t measure geographic reach; rather, the metric tracks the “proportion of time users have access to a particular network.” This places indoor connections and moments of high network congestion into consideration, putting all participants on a more level playing field. Garnering a score of 50 percent means users have 4G access half of the time.
South Korea has a near perfect score of 95.71 percent, followed by Japan’s 92.03 percent and Lithuania’s 84.73 percent. The worst-performing countries are Sri Lanka (40.27%), Lebanon (41.53%), Ecuador (42.56%), Ireland (43.45%), and the Philippines (44.8%).
Notice something? Yeah, the Philippines ranks in the bottom five for both 4G speeds and availability. Fingers can be pointed at multiple excuses, such as the difficulty in covering an archipelago and the country’s mobile network duopoly, but the fact remains that the Pacific-based republic struggles to keep up with evolving wireless standards.
Take note, however, that even though this is a global survey comprising 78 countries, numerous African and Asian regions are excluded because they lack test data for fair analysis.
Click the image for a closer look
You can find the complete set of statistics on OpenSignal’s website, complete with interactive maps and graphs. It’s all quite fascinating, and will either enlighten or frustrate you, depending on where you live.
If you want to contribute to the cause, you can download OpenSignal’s app for Android or iOS. On top of collecting data, it can also help you find more stable network connections and nearby Wi-Fi hotspots around the globe.
Confused by some of the terminology? Watch our LTE-A explainer video to bring you up to speed:
Enterprise
AMD poised to lead agentic AI era with high-performance CPUs
AMD is prepared to lead the industry in its agentic AI era with their high-performance CPU strategy.
As the industry pivots from simple AI models to agentic AI systems that are capable of independent planning and decision-making, the CPU is reclaiming its role as the critical “head coach” of the data center.
This was noted by AMD CEO and Chair Dr. Lisa Su during the AMD Advancing AI event last year. The rise of autonomous agents has transformed inference into a complex and multi-step workflow that demands sophisticated logic and orchestration.
And while high-performance GPUs are necessary to generate insights in real time, the surrounding infrastructure is just as important.
This is where CPUs enter the picture. Their performance and efficiency are more important than ever in the overall performance of modern AI infrastructure.
And AMD delivers an advantage with their offerings. In recently published data, a 5th Gen AMD EPYC CPU-based system is estimated to perform up to 2.1x better per core against an NVIDIA Grace Superchip-based system.
The same system AMD-based system also delivers up to 2.26x uplift on SPECpower, measuring operations per watt.
The x86 CPU architecture gives customers the advantage of a broad, proven software ecosystem that can run existing workloads natively.
This avoids the costly refactoring and code-base duplication often required when switching to Arm-based alternatives.
Looking ahead, AMD is doubling down on the balanced system philosophy. Future architectures such as the “Venice” CPUs will power the “Helios” rack-scale AI design.
By integrating EPYC CPUs with Instinct GPUs and the ROCm software stack, AMD aims to maximize cluster-level performance and lower the total cost of ownership in the agentic era.
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? After a year of wrestling through tariffs from the current American administration, Nintendo has decided to sue the United States.
Last year, the Trump administration was trigger-happy with implement tariffs on countries everywhere. Though the controversy mostly circulated around geopolitics, major corporations also found themselves on the receiving end of Trump’s ire. All over the world, the tariffs sparked product delays and price hikes.
Nintendo is no exception. As a result of the fiasco, the company had to delay the launch of the Switch 2, in anticipation of disruptions caused by the tariffs. First reported by Aftermath, the Japanese gaming giant is now going after the American government over refunds associated with the tariffs.
Now, the tariffs aren’t a big issue anymore. Notably, the Supreme Court scratched off the White House’s implementations that the former found illegal. While a big sigh of relief for future business, corporations like Nintendo have already paid duties and deposits in the past. As a result, Nintendo is now looking for recompense for what they paid before.
Nintendo isn’t the first company to seek restitution over the illegal tariffs. Others, including FedEx and Revlon, are also asking for refunds. However, the Japanese giant is certainly one of the biggest names to cross the government’s path. After all, the company is notoriously litigious over anything it considers as an affront to its business, including small streamers using Pokémon on their broadcasts.
With all its global resources, Nintendo likely won’t just give up without a fight.
SEE ALSO: The Nintendo Switch is now Nintendo’s best-selling console ever
Enterprise
Paramount wins bid for HBO Max, plans to merge streaming apps
It’s all part of the deal to acquire the Warner Bros. library.
Last year ended with the bombshell announcement that Netflix might buy the entire Warner Bros. library. However, after some finagling and a rocky start, Paramount has now emerged as the main suitor for the lucrative library.
At the end of last year, it seemed all but confirmed that the gigantic Warner Bros. library was coming to Netflix as part of a huge buyout deal. This became even clearer when Warner Bros. Discovery rejected Paramount’s initial bid to counter Netflix. However, Paramount recently revised its offer to an astounding US$ 110 billion, or US$ 31 per share, which Warner Bros. Discovery signed off on. Netflix passed on the opportunity for a counteroffer, making Paramount the sole bidder.
Today, Paramount has announced that, if the deal pushes through, they will merge Paramount+ and HBO Max into one streaming service. This means that Paramount’s CBS, Comedy Central, and MTV will be under the same roof as DC, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and Mission: Impossible.
The value of the above names alone makes this into one of the most lucrative deals for Paramount. However, it’s not without its drawbacks. The combined entity will reportedly carry US$ 79 billion in net debt for both purchasing Warner Bros. and refinancing the newly purchased property.
Currently, the deal is expected to go through regulatory approval ending in the second half of 2026.
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