Rwanda has 4th fastest internet in Africa

Rwanda has been ranked fourth in Africa with high speed internet, after Ghana, Kenya and Angola in that order, according to Ookla NetIndex latest global internet speed report which was released on Monday.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Even upcountry dwellers can access internet at Telecentres. The New Times / File.

Rwanda has been ranked fourth in Africa with high speed internet, after Ghana, Kenya and Angola in that order, according to Ookla NetIndex latest global internet speed report which was released on Monday.The performance places Rwanda at 103rd position in the world with an average speed of 3.03 Megabits per second (Mbps).  Speaking to The New Times yesterday, Antoine Sebera, the Acting Chief Executive Officer Broadband Systems Corporation Ltd (BSC), said that the report was correct because the country offers high internet download speed."We have plans to increase the speed in the coming years. Soon we shall again increase the amount of capacity on our international links provided on the submarine cables. This will lead the users to access international websites and content at a much higher speed,” he said. Lithuania ranks first in the world with 31.67 Mbps followed by South Korea 30.59 Mbps and Latvia in third position with 27.42 Mbps.According to the report, the ranking is made by measurements on millions of test results from speedtest.net which is based on the rolling mean through put in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles. Speedtest.net is a free broadband connection analysis software. Sebera mentioned that speedtest.net is a good tool and reference for measuring broadband speed.Users can test their Internet speed against hundreds of geographically dispersed servers around the world.Ookla NetIndex is the global leader in broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. The company’s software and methodologies set the broadband industry standards for accuracy, ease of use and the subsequent development of statistical data.Despite the fact that it is not the only one, it gives a good indication of broadband speed because it is based on results dynamically collected on the Internet.According to the report, Ghana’s average broadband speed is 5.36 Mbps and the country is 69th on the world ranking, Kenya 76th with 4.84 Mbps and Angola 81th with 4.53 Mbps.Rwanda currently relies on three submarine fibre optic cable systems for Internet connection such as the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSY), The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) and SEACOM through local telecommunication companies and ISPs.