Kenya has the second fastest internet in Africa - report

david nganga

July 27, 2018 8:18 PM

The East African nation was edged out by Madagascar which has speeds of 24.87Mbps

The East African nation was edged out by Madagascar which has speeds of 24.87Mbps, placing it top in Africa and 22nd globally.

It takes 27 minutes to download a 5GB HD movie in Madagascar compared to 1 hour and 7 minutes to download the same movie in Kenya.

Madagascar’s high speeds are a result of the underwater EASSy cable that supplies the island’s urban centres with broadband speeds.

“Most other African nations aren’t so lucky, with 7 out of the 38 included nations having to get by on average speeds of less than 1Mbps,” the report said.

South Africa, Cape Verde, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Namibia, Burundi, Mauritius and Uganda finish the top 10 African countries in the report.

Pure fibre availability

Singapore has the fastest internet speeds globally followed closely by Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

"A vibrant digital economy and diminutive landmass offer Singapore significant advantages when it comes to infrastructural development and FTTP (pure fibre) availability," the report noted.

The speed tests were conducted between June 2017 and May 2018.

The data was collected for the second year in a row across the 12 months up to 29 May this year by M-Lab, a partnership between New America’s Open Technology Institute, Google Open Source Research, Princeton University’s PlanetLab and other supporting partners, and compiled by Cable.

david nganga