Mauritania tops Africa with its download speed of 24.52Mbps, with Rwanda second with 6.46Mbps, a study on downloading speeds by Speedtest.net indicates.
The rankings have the countries in 16th and 24th place respectively worldwide.
Despite a number of submarine cables having landed in various regions of the continent in the last few months – four in East Africa alone – African countries still experience slow speeds. The survey showed African countries performed dismally in the world rankings on download speeds, with a majority having below 5Mbps compared to a global average of 12.43Mbps.
Apart from Mauritania, all the other African countries were far below global average with Rwanda followed by Libya, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya respectively. Libya had download speeds of 5.12Mbps, Ethiopia 4.82, Ghana 4.42 and Kenya 4.34.
All other African countries were ranked outside the top 100, with Uganda at position 108, Angola 112, Morocco 113, Namibia 117 and South Africa 118.
On the bottom end, five African countries were rated among the slowest globally in downloading speeds led by Benin at position 178 with 0.54Mbps, Algeria 176 with 1.12Mbps, Egypt 175 with 1.14Mbps, Zambia 171 with 1.43Mbps and Mauritius with 1.49Mbps.
Asian countries continued to lead on the fastest internet speeds with Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Singapore rated in the top five. Hong Kong led globally with an average 42.32Mbps, followed by Japan with 37.49Mbps. Lithuania came in third worldwide with 36.91.
