Broadband penetration on the rise – report

Rwanda ranks top in East Africa and 7th in Africa among countries with active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2011, according to the United Nations Broadband Commission for Digital Development 2012 report.The report titled “The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion for All” is the first-ever country-by-country snapshot of the state of broadband deployment worldwide.It was released on Sunday at the sixth meeting of the Commission, which was held in New York to coincide with the 67th session of the UN General Assembly.The Commission, which is co-Chaired by President Paul Kagame and Carlos Slim, the Mexican Billionaire, and co-Vice Chaired by Dr Hamadoun I. Touré and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, has been advocating strongly to push broadband to the top of the political agenda since it was established in mid-2010.President Kagame attended the high level meeting in New York.Rwanda ranks seventh in Africa after Ghana, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Morocco, in that order.The survey provides country rankings in 177 economies on economic impact, penetration, national broadband policy, and connecting people and dwellings.The performance also places Rwanda 80th in the world with 6.4 active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.Ghana comes first in Africa and 40 in the world with 23.0, followed by Egypt at 21.0 and South Africa on the 3rd position with 19.8.According to the global rankings, Singapore comes first in the world with 110.9 active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Republic of Korea with 105.1, and Japan on 3rd position with 93.7.The report evaluates the roll-out of broadband around the world and tracks progress towards achieving the four advocacy targets set by the Commission in 2011 for boosting broadband affordability and uptake.It was welcomed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called broadband, a “transformative technology that has the potential to spark advances across all three pillars of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.”Speaking to The New Times, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, the Minister of Youth and ICT, said: “We appreciate the commission for recognising our efforts regarding the increase of broadband subscription in the country.”“But, we recognise that we still have a long way to go, we want to push the internet subscription from 8.3 per cent now to 25 per cent within a year”The report reveals that while household Internet access has seen strong growth over the past year and is on track to achieve the Commission’s target for Connecting Homes to Broadband, individual Internet use continues to lag behind.ITU analysts believe that mobile broadband could prove the platform for achieving the boost needed to get progress back on track – at end 2011, there were already almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions as fixed broadband connections.“Broadband networks and services are transforming our way of life. The Broadband Commission is committed to ensuring that the benefits of Broadband are available to all,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré.“I am delighted by the dedication and enthusiasm shown by the many senior business leaders and top policy-makers on the Commission to advancing the global broadband policy agenda.”The report notes a strong linguistic shift now taking place online. If current growth rates continue, it says, the number of Internet users accessing the Internet predominantly in Chinese will overtake English language users by 2015.The State of Broadband 2012 report draws on ITU’s extensive statistical evidence base and is the result of close collaboration between Broadband Commissioners.Rwanda has laid a 2,500-kilometre national fibre optic cable, which is expected to enhance access to various broadband services in the country.The country 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 Internet Service Providers (ISP’s).The internet service providers in the country include MTN Rwanda, Tigo, Airtel, Broadband Systems Corporation, New Artel and Altech Stream.

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Broadband penetration on the rise – report