Internet has become a necessity for so many people and now a preferred medium of communication around the world. Some people are able to go a day or two without water, but get frustrated when they have to go a few hours without the internet. The struggle is real and rightfully so. This is a place where an extraordinary amount of information the likes of which humanity has never seen before, information that allows one to learn new subjects, get news that the SABC is censoring from the public, dive into work, connect with friends and family, and most importantly a place where South Africans unite as one and lose their chill. Slow internet connection speed is a struggle on its own, at that moment you are waiting for that page to load, that video to buffer, or that file to download feeling like you are waiting for forever. A recent study by Akamai Technologies shows ten countries with the quickest internet and the average speed.
Here are the top 10 countries with the fastest internet connectivity:-
- South Korea 29 Mbps speed and this is 4.6 times as quick as the global average
- Norway 3 Mbps the speed increased by 68 % since 2015
- Sweden 6 Mbps, speed increased by 32% in 2015
- Hong Kong 9 Mbps, they were the first country to hit 60 Mbps in 2013
- Switzerland 7 Mbps the speed increased by 25% in 2015
- Latvia 3 Mbps which is nearly 3 times quicker than the global average
- Japan 2 Mbps
- Netherlands 9 Mbps
- Czech Republic 17Mbps the speed increased by 31% since last year
- Finland 7 Mbps a huge increase from 2010
The global average internet connection speed is 5 Mbps and South Africa is 2.85 Mbps positioned 6th fastest on the African continent. Ghana (1st), Zimbabwe (2nd), Kenya (3rd), Libya (4th) and Madagascar (5th) are well ahead, with Madagascar’s average speed sitting at around 4.25Mbps, not too far off double South Africa’s and this is according to IT news Africa.
Imagine life with a few clicks on a keyboard, a few scrolls on the mouse and a couple of swipes on your smartphone with an internet that is just a little faster than the current one. Our internet connectivity growth is pretty low and our service providers are not making it any easier for us with their excessively high pricing, yet overly slow connection. Despite improvements on internet speed and reduction of costs around the world. The relative value of South African internet users compared to the rest of the world remains low, in fact we were ranked 62nd out of 62 countries in 2015, meaning we pay more for internet access yet we have the slowest connection. I don’t know but maybe MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom Mobile should reduce their pricing or make it a bit reasonable for everyone to afford, since they can’t afford us a faster connection. You never know we might just get our long lost chill back.
Article By Pamela Kunene
