Ife Ogunfuwa
Nigeria has been ranked 108th in mobile Internet download speed out of 129 countries, the latest data from the Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index has shown.
This position, which is for August 2018, is down by one place from the nation’s 107th position recorded in July, according to the index that compares Internet speed data from around the world on a monthly basis.
The Ookla index indicated that the country also maintained the 108th position in the broadband download speed category for the third consecutive month since June 2018.
The report stated that Nigeria’s average mobile Internet download speed ranking had been fluctuating between 107th and 108th position in the past six months.
The speed peaked at 11.17mbps in January this year, the highest speed recorded by the country in the past one year.
According to the report, in August, the country recorded 10.02 megabits per second mobile Internet download speed that is far below the global average of 22.99mbps.
The mobile Internet upload speed was 4.17mbps for the month of August, the data stated.
The index stated that the global average for fixed broadband download speed for the country was 10.18mbps, the highest the country recorded in the past one year.
However, this speed is far below the global average of 44.83mbps.
In the fixed broadband category, Nigeria attained an average upload speed of 8.20mbps in the months under review.
As per the August Speedtest Global Index, Norway clinched the number one spot in the mobile broadband category globally with an average download speed of 63.13mbps, after suffering a decline in July.
Norway had been identified as a country with the highest download speed by Ookla consistently for over a year before Qatar took the position in July with 62.61mbps.
Singapore ranked highest for fixed broadband with 189.38mbps average download speed, a position it had maintained for the past one year.
The Nigerian Communications Commission latest data also indicated that the number of active subscribers to mobile Internet services in the country increased to 105 million as of August this year.
This is an indication that the country gained 956,546 new Internet users between July and January 2018, in the Global System for Mobile communication category.
Fixed wireless network providers also gained 2,201 new users, reaching 12,602 users in August from 10,401 subscribers in July, the NCC statistics stated.
The Chairman, NCC, Senator Durojaiye Olabiyi, while speaking at a forum recently identified multiple taxation/regulation, right of way, arbitrary and indiscriminate charges, vandalism of telecom infrastructures, poor power supply as some of the problems hindering the attainment of 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018.
According to him, the country has attained 22 per cent minimum Internet penetration.
“Nigeria has about 10 terabytes undersea cable telecommunication capacity. The major obstacle has been the ability to deploy fibre infrastructure across the country. The commission has completed the licensing using the Open Access Model which is non-discriminatory and which enables infrastructure sharing to bridge the gap and deliver very robust, fast and reliable broadband services in the country. This will help to stimulate other sectors of the economy and lead to economic growth,” he added.
