It is truth universally acknowledged that if you live on less than $1 a day you must be poor. In this new digital age I would like to add two more soundbites: Life begins at 1mbps and prosperity at a 100mbps. If information is power and if you live on less than 1mbps then you are undoubtedly poor.
At least I thought so until I visited Ookla to confirm my beliefs. Brace yourself for some serious number crunching.The latest figures from Ookla are expected in part and confusing in part. As we have come to expect Asian countries dominate the list led by Hong Kong where the average speed is 44.15mbps and Korea the former king of broadband (South Korea of course, we all know how poor the North is) dropped to 6th with an average speed of 33.49 mbps. Rich developed countries, islands and Asian countries fill the rest of the top positions. Until you get to Africa.
In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day. The government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d’état led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won.Slavery in Mauritania has been called a major human rights issue as well as female genital mutilation, child labour, and human trafficking. Yet the country tops all African countries at number 37 with a handy speed of 14.62mbps. Above Spain (38), Australia (12.2), Monaco and all her kings (45) and even the Chinese (60).
If you associate Rwanda with genocides you are so 20th Century. At 9mbps they have the second fastest internet in Africa. Ookla thinks there is no Internet in Gambia, Ethiopia and Somalia. Also thanks to Liquid Telecom for their extensive network Zimbabwe makes it into the top ten in Africa at number 9 with a speed of 3.55mbps otherwise we would be stuck at a 1.1mbps like Botswana to which the Powertel cable was linked. I guess we have to wait for prosperity though.
Now before we give you the rest of the list for Africa we are curious: How fast is your internet? How much did you contribute or take from the 3.55 mbps. Please go to http://www.speedtest.net/ to do the test and come back and post your ISP’s name, advertised speed and speedtest result. Now here is the rest of Africa and yes there are 29 countries in Africa, 28 break above the 1mbs threshold. I guess there are too busy fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo to waste time doing speed tests:
| # in Africa | Country | Global Position | Average Speed (mbps) |
|
1 |
Mauritania |
37 |
14.62 |
|
2 |
Rwanda |
57 |
9.55 |
|
3 |
Ghana |
89 |
5.07 |
|
4 |
Cape Verde |
94 |
4.81 |
|
5 |
Kenya |
98 |
4.72 |
|
6 |
Libya |
109 |
3.98 |
|
7 |
Morocco |
114 |
3.81 |
|
8 |
South Africa |
118 |
3.61 |
|
9 |
Zimbabwe |
120 |
3.55 |
|
10 |
Seychelles |
126 |
3.42 |
|
11 |
Uganda |
127 |
3.34 |
|
12 |
Angola |
130 |
3.32 |
|
13 |
Tunisia |
139 |
2.97 |
|
14 |
Zambia |
146 |
2.62 |
|
15 |
Tanzania |
147 |
2.59 |
|
16 |
Mozambique |
148 |
2.53 |
|
17 |
Mali |
153 |
2.38 |
|
18 |
Nigeria |
157 |
2.20 |
|
19 |
Sudan |
159 |
2.12 |
|
20 |
Côte d’Ivoire |
165 |
1.84 |
|
21 |
Swaziland |
166 |
1.83 |
|
22 |
Senegal |
168 |
1.75 |
|
23 |
Mauritius |
171 |
1.56 |
|
24 |
Lesotho |
172 |
1.54 |
|
25 |
Malawi |
175 |
1.40 |
|
26 |
Egypt |
177 |
1.25 |
|
27 |
Algeria |
178 |
1.12 |
|
28 |
Botswana |
179 |
1.10 |
|
29 |
Democratic Republic of the Congo |
180 |
0.60 |
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43 comments
download 1.15 Mb/s
Upload 0.35 Mb/s Telone ADSL. Harare
It seems telone is kicking ass here.
Actually 1Mbps is a LOT for most of us! I always do speed tests on my link and I have never achieved anything above 1Mpbs for download speeds, though my service provider claims they are charging me for a 2Mbps link! But guess what, I have learnt to live with that!
Name them for the good of all geek-kind!
I am in SA and I am with iBurst.co.za – 20GB a month for R199. They are slow but very reliable. I don’t remember a single day their internet was down. So I would rather stay with them than other “fast” providers that are down now and them. Its a case of an ugly wife who loves u to bits as opposed to a gorgeous one who gives no ***! You know what I mean.
Copy paster & modify articles, http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/69006-prosperity-begins-at-100mbps-falkvinge.html
Original quote “Sharing is caring, and prosperity begins at a hundred megabit.” by Rick Falkvinge
As a matter of fact the quote is from torrent freak which I suspect the guys at mybroadband.co.za used. There is nothing about speeds by country there. I spent an entire 4 hours with Excel to come up with that. In any case you have to understand how news is written. Agencies like AFP and AP get it first and other channels get it. You could claim inspiration but the relationship between the two articles is tenuous at best.
Must say my first impression was to agree with @ Greg Chiponda. However your work on spread sheet did add value. And I suppose the there are quite a few articles out there with Title “What’s in a name” and each one adding a bit of a spin on the topic. I also am quite surprised that Zim is up there. I work in Bots and my experience of speed here is that it is better than what I get in ZIm. I have never done a speed test in Zim but I just get frustrated by the response and at time avoid sites I know demand a lot of juice. That said, it’s cool to be in the top 10.
great article @google-92f7f0bad2de4a040c9be32f8fc8e3e7:disqus well researched & very informative. keep up the good work techzim & co
This was taken last night. Telone Platinum Package – not consistent but impressive when it works…
Looking at your ping of 5ms it is clear you were running a speed test on a local server. Naturally you would get great speeds on local traffic, what i would like to see is people who run tests from http://speedtest.comcast.net/
for instance my result is http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/212056342.png
Have just run a test on there, still impressive if you ask me, see results below:
http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/212058662.png
Ok my skepticism has been put to rest. I am very impressed at the fact that you are able to pull down 1Mpbs+ on a tel*one line. I am running two links (WiMax ala Econet @home Broadband and ZOL 512Kbps CIR with data cap) and neither goes beyond 512Kbps during the day WiMax performs well after 8ish till the early morning. That said, I shall be paying Tel*one a visit soon…
Although the results are impressive like I originally said it’s not 100% consistent but when it operates it OPERATES… Make sure your phone bill is in your name or you won’t qualify they very sticky about that.
Telone here I come!!!
The reason Liquid is ranked so high is the fact that they have customers (ISP’s) including ZOL and Econet who purchase in excess of 100Mbps which is then on sold to end users so no our average is not 3.55Mbps… at least not for the home user. How many Zimbabweans do you think can afford a 3Mbps/3Mbps or greater link on 1:1 contention.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2477616799.png
Tel.One ADSL HARARE
Result 4.09Mb/s down load and 0.86Mb/s upload. Check link below to verify my results.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2477631794.png
Telone adsl results
Telone adsl results
Yoafrica: home broadband. Official speed: 0.5 mbps. Test server in Pittsburgh.
From Warsaw I can see 2 servers in Harare and 1 in Botswana:
ZOL, ping 471ms, download 4.45Mbps, upload 0.55Mbps
YoAfrica, ping 235ms, download 0.18Mbps, upload 0.32Mbps
Botswana Telecom, ping 226ms, download 2.99Mbps, upload 1.81Mbps
I tested several times and the above is about average. Test to a local server gives 3ms ping, 7Mbps down and up. Test to a random US server gave 123ms ping, 6Mbps down, 2.1Mbps up. Harare Time 14:00.
http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/212177382.png
Ran another test 825pm server location Washington DC, Peak was 0.97Mbps on Econet Wimax @ home … decent speeds if i am up later will run one around midnight and see what happens then. This is proving to be an interesting thread perhaps we can start a database of speed tests locally and internationally to compare.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2479004281.png
one last interesting observation, I am getting much better speeds to South Africa than I am to ZOL in ZImbabwe and Yo Africa. Running a tracert shows that all my traffic goes out to RSA first and then comes back and in some cases is going all the way to the UK before coming back to Zimbabwe. This probably explains the high latencies.
Econet Line: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2479164456.png
another one an Econet Line: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2479194934.png
Hey @1aaa3851c947769e99d3861290d78d46:disqus is this on a 3G HSPD line or is this on WiMax. The speeds are impressive.
The normal Econet line, on HSDPA yes. When i connect my dongle the ZTE MF667 i can easily get above 10Mbps on HSPA+, only that i dont have it right now.
I find it interesting that even my Econet line is faster than my wimax link…
@d99ecc101df0f3f31b0dbc7a5d8a6c1d:disqus here is the HSPA+ test i referred to earlier
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2492817471.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2480016227.png
It seems only fast-fastish speeds are beeing posted here because their kinda is no “middle internet” here in Zim. As in, some people can’t actually run the speedtest because their (my) powertel is far too slow to even load the webpage. But if I plug in my over priced Econet the page opens quick as lightning and surely enough I get 1mbps.
I think this has something to do with your location as well. My Powertel connection is fine. 130KBps is normal 4 me.
It seems this has something to do with your location as well. My Powertel connection just works fine. Speeds 120KBps are normal
ZOL Adsl 512Kbps CIR. Local and International Test
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2484345132.png
http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/213041732.png
Using an Econet 3G line. coming from downloading a 700mb movie in 30 mins. Not the best of speeds i kno!
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2485915187.png
Tel.One ADSL HARARE
Here is the result i got using your xfinity test..
http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/213443552.png
Econet HSPA+ http://www.speedtest.net/result/2487665083.png
It seems there are two extremes here. People who cannot even view the page and those using what are by Zim standards on ultrafast connections
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2497858903.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2501324050.png
Frampol our office internet 2.77Mbs download and 1.99 upload.
Thats to aserver in London