Zimbabwe’s (Internet Service Provider’s) ISP’s upload speeds are the fastest in Southern Africa and the third position in Africa, while our download speeds come second in Southern Africa and seventh in Africa, and take 98th position in the world.
These findings were put together from NETINDEX.com for the duration Jun 25, 2013 to Jul 24, 2013.
We have put together the following tables:
Southern Africa – Upload speeds
| Position | Country | Average Upload speed (Mbps) | Global position |
| 1 | Zimbabwe | 5.31 | 41 |
| 2 | Namibia | 3.41 | 68 |
| 3 | Lesotho | 2.84 | 87 |
| 4 | Angola | 2.76 | 90 |
| 5 | Zambia | 1.85 | 117 |
| 6 | South Africa | 1.71 | 129 |
Africa – Upload speeds
| Position | Country | Average Upload speed (Mbps) | Global position |
| 1 | Gabon | 6.76 | 28 |
| 2 | Ethiopia | 5.50 | 36 |
| 3 | Zimbabwe | 5.31 | 41 |
| 4 | Mauritius | 5.13 | 44 |
| 5 | Ghana | 4.94 | 47 |
| … | |||
| 22 | South Africa | 1.71 | 129 |
Southern Africa – Download speeds
| Position | Country | Download speed (Mbps) | Global position |
| 1 | Namibia | 6.98 | 80 |
| 2 | Zimbabwe | 5.43 | 98 |
| 3 | Angola | 4.82 | 108 |
| 4 | South Africa | 4.00 | 126 |
| 5 | Lesotho | 2.80 | 157 |
| 6 | Zambia | 2.51 | 164 |
| 7 | Swaziland | 2.10 | 174 |
| 8 | Botswana | 1.67 | 177 |
Africa – Download speeds
| Position | Country | Average Download speed (Mbps) | Global position |
| 1 | Madagascar | 9.22 | 64 |
| 2 | Libya | 7.02 | 78 |
| 3 | Mauritius | 7.02 | 79 |
| 4 | Namibia | 6.98 | 80 |
| 5 | Ghana | 6.69 | 84 |
| 6 | Mauritania | 5.64 | 94 |
| 7 | Zimbabwe | 5.43 | 98 |
| 8 | Ethiopia | 5.42 | 99 |
| 9 | Angola | 4.82 | 108 |
| 10 | Gabon | 4.69 | 112 |
| 11 | Uganda | 4.67 | 113 |
| … | |||
| 15 | South Africa | 4.00 | 126 |
This is encouraging considering that Africa has 54 countries.
Of course you always have to talk about who takes the first position in the world. Well, it’s Hong Kong, with a download speed of 51.99Mbps. Go there and you can download an average size (700Mb) movie in 13 seconds 2 minutes.
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15 comments
I think the ‘average’ speeds leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I, for one, would like to see how the speed divided into quartiles (to see how they are skewed).
Allow me to speculate: countries where a large fraction of internet access is done via corporate networks skew to the faster ‘average’, and those countries that have more widespread home (or mobile) usage skew to the lower end. Which leads to the unintuitive conclusion that faster average speeds = lower internet access rate per capita. i.e. should we be celebrating that most people access their internet at work mostly?
Additional data point: high disproportion/asymmetry in upload/download speeds implies home connection; more symmetric speeds imply corporate.
“Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe. The value is the rolling mean throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.”
does this not mean that with all the speedtests being done locally, these are speeds done on average based on connections and speeds from ZINX and not actually international bandwidth??
There is absolutely NO WAY that our internet is better than South Africa! Experience it yourself. Something is wrong with these figures
I am a regular traveler to SA, I think Zimbabwe has a few things better than SA as far as internet goes.
1. Zim speed for 3g and home internet options are way better.
2. Internet provision is easier.
3. Customer service is better and more responsive.
So if those results are compiled from people doing speed tests, then its no surprise
Can you please do another table with pricing. You will see shocking results because our average speeds as Zimbabwe are high because the pricing of internet is very high and keeps the lines or medium free or less congested while-list in other countries like South Africa the pricing is competitive and proportionally keeps the lines busy. You could also make a survey on the average downloads or uploads per user and have a look at were our country Zimbabwe would be ranked.
The figures above therefore do not give a conclusive assessment on the internet performance and usage
Quick question, are you saying that in Hong Kong you can download a 700 MegaByte movie in 13 seconds, at 53 MegaBytes per second? Thats like 430 Megabits per second, half the speed of wired Gigibit Ethernet !! ???
If so thats very impressive, if not, i think you have your bits and bytes mixed up a bit??
You know what? You are right. I did have my bits and bytes mixed up, thanks for the correcton. Its been corrected
My pleasure, was not trying to correct you, it was merely an observation. Regards, Ian
Loool…clearly Zims average is calculated from the lucky few on fibre and megabytes to spare on expensive HSPA. I bet the average for us would be lower because I, like most people I know only test the speed of my internet when I already know its fast. As in, no way am I going to wait 10min to load speedtest on my powertel connection however if Im on a fibre link such as at work then ofcourse Im going to take the speed test.
mm mm, interesting article. Here is my speed right now 🙂
hahahaha interesting, well this is mine:
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2860989649
techzim guys have obviously not used internet in South Africa…90% of Zim still uses 512kbps connections and 1MBpss at BEST – in SA you’re not getting anything less than a consistent 4MBps – my friend just got a 40 MB connection. Please tell your sources they’re dumb
Well, NETINDEX is incredibly wrong and Techzim should have correctly pointed out that fact as tech journos! Good journalists don’t celebrate on facts they know are very incorrect!
Fact 1: There is a big mismatch between local bandwidth and international bandwidth. Speedtest.com by default, uses a local speed test server at Yo Africa and this fools many people! Change the default speed test server, pick one from US or EU and notice the glaring difference!
Fact 2: Most of our internet users (probably over 80%) use mobile internet and they probably never use tools like speedtest.net on they mobile devices. Now, the speed average should plummet if we take mobile internet into the equation. It is ludicrous to even fantasize getting an average of 5MB download speed at Econet!
PLEASE, give us a break!!!!
Remember International BW to you (us in Zim) is LOCAL BW to US, Europe and some parts of Asia. Making local content the answer to better speeds and internet experience.
thanks for information
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