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Garikai Dzoma

Snail - Internet Speed

Snail - Internet SpeedIt 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

 

image via: blog.podcaster.cl
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43 comments

  1. ﻖﺸﻋ ﺮﯿﻤﻧ ﺰﮔﺮﻫ

    download 1.15 Mb/s
    Upload 0.35 Mb/s Telone ADSL. Harare

    1. Garikai Dzoma

      It seems telone is kicking ass here.

  2. Concern Shoko

    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!

    1. tinm@n

      …though my service provider claims they are charging me for a 2Mbps link!…

      Name them for the good of all geek-kind!

      1. Concern Shoko

        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.

  3. Greg Chiponda

    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

    1. Garikai Dzoma

      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.

      1. Chanyane

        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.

      2. Greg Chiponda

        great article @google-92f7f0bad2de4a040c9be32f8fc8e3e7:disqus well researched & very informative. keep up the good work techzim & co

  4. Raymond Swart

    This was taken last night. Telone Platinum Package – not consistent but impressive when it works…

    1. Fourwallsinaroom

      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

      1. Raymond Swart

        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

        1. Fourwallsinaroom

          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…

          1. Raymond Swart

            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.

    2. Donald Mutekede

      Telone here I come!!!

  5. Fourwallsinaroom

    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.

  6. ic0n1c

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/2477616799.png

  7. Simmy

    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

  8. Pefector

    Telone adsl results

  9. Pefector

    Telone adsl results

  10. Mark Hyde

    Yoafrica: home broadband. Official speed: 0.5 mbps. Test server in Pittsburgh.

  11. Marek

    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.

  12. Fourwallsinaroom

    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.

    1. Fourwallsinaroom

      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.

  13. Pippen

    Econet Line: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2479164456.png

    1. Pippen

      another one an Econet Line: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2479194934.png

      1. Fourwallsinaroom

        Hey @1aaa3851c947769e99d3861290d78d46:disqus is this on a 3G HSPD line or is this on WiMax. The speeds are impressive.

        1. Pippen

          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.

          1. fourwallsinaroom

            I find it interesting that even my Econet line is faster than my wimax link…

            1. Pippen

              @d99ecc101df0f3f31b0dbc7a5d8a6c1d:disqus here is the HSPA+ test i referred to earlier

              http://www.speedtest.net/result/2492817471.png

  14. Muzacha

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/2480016227.png

  15. Tumi

    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.

    1. Donald Mutekede

      I think this has something to do with your location as well. My Powertel connection is fine. 130KBps is normal 4 me.

    2. Donald Mutekede

      It seems this has something to do with your location as well. My Powertel connection just works fine. Speeds 120KBps are normal

  16. Fourwallsinaroom

    ZOL Adsl 512Kbps CIR. Local and International Test

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/2484345132.png

    http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/213041732.png

  17. TorrentManager

    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

  18. Simmy

    Tel.One ADSL HARARE
    Here is the result i got using your xfinity test..
    http://stage.results.speedtest.comcast.net/result/213443552.png

  19. Eco-chinyi

    Econet HSPA+ http://www.speedtest.net/result/2487665083.png

  20. ubert

    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

  21. Zibusiso Vusumuzi

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/2497858903.png

  22. techGeek

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/2501324050.png

    Frampol our office internet 2.77Mbs download and 1.99 upload.

    1. techGeek

      Thats to aserver in London

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