Slowly getting faster

SA’s Internet speeds are increasing. But the pace of growth is too slow

Average broadband connection speed in SA improved over the past year, a new report by US-based cloud services provider Akamai shows.

But SA has lagged behind other developing countries when it comes to broadband access, price and even speed. The report measures Internet connection speed, network connectivity and its availability.

It shows that SA is slowly improving its broadband standing as the private sector and government continue to pump billions of rand into expanding broadband networks — both fibre optic and wireless.

Understanding broadband speeds is vital to businesses and government. “Internet speed determines the services that can be delivered, the experiences consumers can have, how money can be made, and how governments can serve their people,” Akamai says. Its report says 107 countries qualified for inclusion for its assessment, and 100 of them saw quarterly growth in 4 Mbps (megabits per second) broadband adoption rates, up from 76 in the previous quarter.

Mbps refers to the speed of an Internet connection while megabytes (MB) describe the size of a file or the amount of data in a bundle.

A 4 Mbps line enables a user to download a 100 MB file in three minutes and 20 seconds, according to uswitch.com’s download calculator.

The global average connection speed jumped by 10% in the first quarter of 2015 to 5 Mbps. In the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, SA is ranked 90th in terms of its average connection speed, which rose 29% to 3,4 Mbps year on year but showed a marginal increase of 3,7% on a quarterly basis.

However, the adoption of 4 Mbps lines is where SA stalls. This category gained just 0,3%.

“SA once again had the lowest 4 Mbps adoption rate in the group by far, with less than one out of five IP (Internet protocol) addresses connecting to Akamai at the threshold speed,” the report says.

To put this into perspective, in January the Federal Communications Commission — the US equivalent of the Independent Communications Authority of SA — noted that the 4 Mbps standard it had set in 2010 was outdated. It updated its broadband benchmark to 25 Mbps for downloads.

US technology firm Cisco forecast growth of 2,7 times in fixed-line broadband speed to 10 Mbps in 2019 from 3,5 Mbps last year. The average global fixed broadband speed grew 16% y/y from 3Mbps in 2013 to 3,5 Mbps in 2014. A 3,5 Mbps speed enables a user to download a threeminute MP3 song in 11 seconds.

“We are entering a very