A lot of countries around the world have Internet access, but the speeds are not equal. We have countries with middling speeds, others with ‘okay’ speeds and the lucky few who have Internet speeds that we consider today as ‘fantastic.’
Akamai, an American Internet company released its quarterly State of the Internet Report for 2017 which gives a worldwide summary of the connection speeds that are being realised in different countries around the world.
In their fourth quarterly report for 2016, Kenya was the leader in the Middle East and Africa region where it overtook Israel to register an average of 15.0Mbps, which was a 36% increase between quarters.
Well now in the first quarter for 2017, Kenya lost that place to Qatar and Israel, which both registered an average of 13.7 Mbps broadband speeds. Kenya’s average speed went down to 12.2 Mbps, which was 19% what was posted the previous quarter, but was still 67% up when you compare year to year results.
When it comes to peak speeds, Qatar leads the region with a throughput of 107.9Mbps, which was a 21% increase YoY. Kenya was further down at the pack at 7th place with max speeds of 38.5 Mbps, which still makes it have the highest figure for an African country.
Egypt trails everyone at the bottom when it comes to both the average speeds (2.0Mbps) and also on peak speeds (17.0Mbps).
When it comes to adoption of broadband Internet, Israel tops the charts in the percentage of users with over 4Mbps (95%) and the United Arab Emirates a close second (94%). Meanwhile, Kenya is 6th on the list with a 73% adoption rate.
The percentage of Internet users with over 10Mbps is another story. Qatar leads the pack in the MEA region with 62% while Kenya is third with 45%. In comparison, the next African country on this list is South Africa with a measly 11% adoption rate. Kenya’s figure was a 25% drop from last year, but it was still a 151% change year-on-year.
When it comes to the percentage of Internet users with connectivity that exceeds 15 Mbps, Qatar leads the pack with 33% which was a 242% change when compared YoY. Kenya is second on the list with 31%, which was a 30% decline from last quarter but still a 247% change YoY. Countries like Nigeria, Namibia and Egypt have less than 1% of Internet users with broadband speeds exceeding 15Mbps.
Lastly in the 25Mbps category, Akamai found out that 12% of the unique addresses they were surveying had an average connection speed of at least 25 Mbps, which was a 16% increase. The number of countries or regions that qualified for this inclusion rose from 55 to 59 in this quarter. Kenya registered a loss in this category where its figure went down by 29% to an 11% adoption rate. Still, the adoption rate in this category increased by 42% worldwide.
