Sub-Saharan Africa has most expensive broadband prices – Report
Tigerianhe 2020 Global Broadband Pricing Report by Cable.co.uk reveals vast disparities between rich and poor nations.
The report analysed data from 3 095 fixed-line broadband packages in 206 countries between 28 November 2019 and 8 January 2020.
It says war-ravaged Syria offers the world’s cheapest broadband, with an average cost of $6.60 per month.
The East African nation of Eritrea is the most expensive place in the world to get fixed-line broadband, with an average package price of $2 666.24 per month.
Sub-Saharan Africa fared worst overall, with almost all of its countries in the most expensive half of the table.
Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) was the cheapest in the region, coming in 34th overall with an average package price of $21.73.
Equatorial Guinea ($259.38), Burundi ($283.73) and Mauritania ($694.63) join Eritrea as the most expensive countries in the region, and all sit among the 10 most expensive countries in the world.
SA ranks number 101 out of 206 countries with an average cost of $44.77 per month.
“The price of fixed-line broadband globally continues to fall, while speeds continue to rise,” says Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk.
“In our worldwide broadband speed comparison, released in July of last year, similar disparities were apparent to those seen here. The countries with slow, patchy broadband infrastructure that supplies only a fraction of the population tend to be the most expensive. Likewise, those with exceptional, often full-fibre infrastructure supplying the majority of the population tend to be the cheapest, if not in absolute terms, certainly on a cost-per-megabit basis.”
Three of the top five cheapest countries in the world are found in the former USSR (Commonwealth of Independent States, including the Russian Federation itself) with an average package cost of just $7.35 per month.
