With several ASEAN markets launching dedicated visa programs to attract remote workers, I’m reaching out to share Ookla’s latest report on whether network performance in Southeast Asia can actually support their bandwidth demands. You can find the full analysis, based on Speedtest Intelligence data from Q2 2025 to Q2 2026 across 13 destinations in six ASEAN markets, here.
Key takeaways include:
Mobile speeds are satisfactory for remote workers in every destination:
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- Da Nang (Vietnam) leads at 215.56 Mbps and the range runs down to 55.48 Mbps in Cebu (Philippines).
- Median download speeds rose in 12 of the 13 destinations over the year.
- 5G Availability widened in every destination, but consistency did not follow:
- 5G Availability rose in all 13 destinations and now runs from 83.8% in Phuket (Thailand) to 40.0% in Penang (Malaysia).
- Over the same year, the share of 5G samples clearing 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload fell in seven of the 13.
- Mobile connection stability is slipping, though no destination has reached the point where a video call suffers:
- Mobile jitter stayed clear of the 30 ms Microsoft Teams classifies as poor in all 13 destinations, ranging from 7 ms in Da Nang to 18 ms in Cebu.
- It rose over the year in 11 of the 13.
- Fixed broadband is where the nomad destination hubs separate most:
- Median download speeds run from 447.75 Mbps in Singapore to 60.33 Mbps in Jakarta (Indonesia), a far wider spread than mobile, and reliability varies more than the medians suggest.
- Chiang Mai (Thailand) pairs a 258.50 Mbps median with only 65.7% of its fixed samples clearing 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload.
- Wi-Fi is the last step between a venue’s fixed line and the laptop, so a fast connection can still deliver a slow working session:
- Singapore runs 34.4% of its reported Wi-Fi connections on Wi-Fi 7, seven and a half times the next ASEAN destination, while legacy Wi-Fi 4 still handles 42.7% of connections in Jakarta and 41.9% in Bali.
