Nigeria is ranked 142nd in the world in terms of internet speed in 2021
Nigeria is ranked 142nd in the world in terms of internet speed in 2021
Nigeria is ranked 142nd out of 224 countries in terms of internet broadband speed. This is according to a report released by Cable UK titled Worldwide broadband speed league 2021.
Nigeria's average download speed, according to the report, is 8.68 megabits per second (mbps). This translates to a download time of approximately 1 hour, 18 minutes, and 39 seconds for a 5Gb HD movie in Nigeria. This result was obtained following the examination of 107,431 unique IP addresses located throughout the country.
To illustrate, downloading a 5Gb HD movie would take 2 minutes 29 seconds in Jersey, the country with the fastest broadband speed. This is approximately 31 times the speed of Nigeria's broadband.
Nigeria also lags behind other African nations such as Ghana (9.23mbps), Ivory Coast (9.54mbps), Burkina Faso (10.73mbps), Kenya (11.27mbps), Madagascar (16.28mbps), South Africa (19.94mbps), and Reunion (9.54mbps) (43.62mbps).
Despite improvements, Nigeria continues to fall short of the global average
The broadband speed (8.68mbps) recorded this year is a significant improvement over the 3.34mbps recorded in September 2020, when Nigeria was ranked 186. One reason for this is the country's improved 4G network. According to an Airtel report, the enhanced 4G network resulted in an increase in data traffic, smartphone penetration, data customers, and the amount of data consumed per customer.
The total number of 4G connections in the country has also increased significantly, reaching 36,538,228 at the time of writing. This is a significant increase over the 21,712,218 recorded in 2019.
Despite these significant strides, Nigeria continues to fall short of the global average speed, which is currently 29.79Mbps, up 20% from the 24.83Mbps recorded last year. Additionally, the figure falls short of the 10Mbps minimum required to meet the needs of a typical family or small business, as determined by the UK telecoms watchdog, Ofcom.
Nigeria's race to achieve a respectable broadband penetration rate is clearly a marathon, with the country content with making incremental progress. Currently at 45 percent, one of the roadblocks is the Right of Way (RoW) fees levied by some states across the country.
As of April 2021, 29 of the country's 36 states had yet to implement the Federal Government's proposed N145/m RoW fee. This is according to Dr Isa Ali Pantami, Nigeria's Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
One can only hope that the government's recent approval of the deployment of 5G networks across the country ensures that subsequent reports will include faster speeds.
The bottom ten is dominated by sub-Saharan African countries
Africa as a whole fared poorly, with six of the bottom ten countries hailing from Sub-Saharan Africa. Somalia (1.59mbps), Djibouti (1.46mbps), South Sudan (1.40mbps), Equatorial Guinea (1.30mbps), Guinea-Bissau (1.24mbps), and Ethiopia are among these six countries (1.20mbps).
North Africa was identified as the region with the slowest overall internet speed, as none of the region's countries made the top 120. Morocco was the region's highest-ranked country, coming in at 129th with a broadband speed of 10.33mbps.
Tunisia had the region's second-fastest internet connection at an average speed of 7.46mbps, while Egypt had the region's third-fastest connection at 6.94mbps. However, according to a report by Speedtest Intelligence, every North African country "improved their mobile and fixed broadband speeds from Q2 2020 to Q1 2021, despite massive global economic setbacks."
One of the primary reasons African countries have such slow internet speeds is due to insufficient broadband infrastructure. For example, Jersey, which ranks first, was the first and only country in the world to make fiber to the premises (FTTP) accessible to all broadband users. In comparison to fiber to the cabinet (FTTC), FTTP is entirely fiber optic, making it the fastest type of fiber available.
Additionally, there is the issue of slow internet adoption. While the rest of the world is rapidly transitioning to 5G internet, African countries are still struggling to upgrade their 3G to 4G internet users. As a result, network providers lack sufficient incentive to upgrade internet infrastructure. This is also a problem affecting the continent's broadband penetration.
