By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Johannesburg with 55.64 Mbps and Pretoria with 44.94 Mbps netted the top end of the top 10 African cities with high average mobile download speed in the first quarter of 2021 (Q1 2021).
The two South African cities were ranked on data from Speedtest Global Index owned by Ookla, an internet analytics company based in the United States.
Speedtest provides data for mobile and fixed broadband internet for more than 130 countries around the world.
The best average speed for mobile internet on the continent is in South Africa at 44.80 Mbps, that for fixed broadband is in Ghana at 51.93 Mbps.
There are different ways for users to test internet speed. Netflix launched fast.com, an effective internet testing tool, free for everyone to compare speeds across geographies.
According to the report, quoted by Nairametrics, the global average for download speed is 53.38 Mbps for mobile and 102.12 Mbps for fixed broadband.
Africa’s best performers scored below these marks.
Top 10 African countries for mobile internet speed
The top 10 countries for mobile internet speeds in Africa in Q1 2021 are South Africa, Mali, Morocco, Cameroon, Tunisia, Egypt, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya at 20.98 Mbps.
Sudan is ranked worst with 12.21 Mbps, which came 131st out of 134 overall.
The top 10 in fixed broadband are Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Madagascar, Egypt, Senegal, Seychelles, Morocco, Congo, and Burkina Faso at 23.81 Mbps.
Guinea is ranked worst with 6.66 Mbps, which came 173rd out of 176 overall.
Airtel and Port Harcourt stand out
In Nigeria, Airtel has the fastest Mobile Speed Score (27.18) and best Mobile Consistency Score (84.7 per cent) as of Q1 2021.
Port Harcourt has the fastest mean mobile download speed at 23.02 Mbps.
ipNX is the fastest fixed broadband provider with a Speed Score of 18.00. It also has the best fixed broadband Consistency Score at 36.2 per cent.
Nairametrics reports that these numbers show a wide gap between internet speeds in Africa and the rest of the world as they are low when compared with global averages.
Africa has the fastest growing mobile telecom market but internet penetration is about 42 per cent.