South African internet is underperforming when compared countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), showing a 1.1 per cent decline in internet speed in the third quarter of 2013.
Akamai Technologies’ latest State of the Internet report, released each quarter, ranked South Africa 95th out of all the countries surveyed, with average internet speeds of less than 2.3 megabytes per second.
“South Africa had the smallest [year-on-year] increase, at 5.2 per cent, and was the only surveyed country to see a growth rate below 10 per cent,” Akamai said in its study.
Only 1.1 per cent of all South Africans have access to internet speeds of over 10 megabytes per second and just 7.7 per cent of the population have access to broadband speeds of over 4.4 megabytes per second, down 12 per cent from 2012.
South Africa has the lowest broadband adoption rate of all the countries surveyed in the EMEA region.
HumanIPO reported earlier this month the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party, had released its 2014 election manifesto that said the party aims to “achieve a universal average download speed of 100 mbps by 2030”, as well as provide 90 per cent of South Africans with free Wi-Fi by 2020.
At the end of last year, David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet report, told HumanIPO the goals set out in South Africa’s National Broadband Policy, Strategy and Plan, which correspond with the ANC manifesto, were realistic, but public-private collaboration will be needed to achieve them.
