Ghana tops Africa with fastest internet speed – The implications

Ghana continues to make strides as far as the development of ICT is concerned. In this report Charles Benoni Okine writes about the implications of Ghana’s ranking as number one in Africa with the highest internet speed.

 The heightened competition within the telecommunications sector in the country coupled with the huge investments in infrastructure upgrading and replacement by the players in the industry seems to be paying off.

Consequently, Ghana has been ranked first in Africa as the country with the highest Internet speed according to the latest global internet speed report released early this month.

By implication fast internet speed, aside improving productivity and job creation establishes, it can create an enabling environment for businesses and the government as a whole.

According to The Global Information and Communications Technology Department of the World Bank and IFC, for every 10 percentage-point increase in high-speed Internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points.

The Internet Society also points out that the Internet is about sharing. It is successful because it makes all Internet resources available to all users simultaneously. This resource sharing ability is central to the Internet’s utility and success because it enables the interconnection of diverse applications over heterogeneous networking media running at diverse speeds.

High speed internet allows for growth without central control because everybody shares in the control of the network.

For instance, when one places a phone call one is connected with the person at the number one dialled: when one is on the Internet, one is connected with everybody else on the Internet, all of the time.

The Internet is continuously evolving. Some of the more profound recent changes have been caused by the impact of broadband access networks. In the last decade, the number of broadband subscribers worldwide has grown over one hundred times.

Widespread broadband deployment has led to tremendous innovation in Internet applications and huge increases in the average amount of bandwidth consumed per user. The effects of these changes are now being felt around the globe and Ghana is no exception.

Ghana ranking in Africa.

Ghana is ranked number one and it is followed by Kenya, Angola and Rwanda.

 The Ookla Net Index, saw Ghana placing 73rd globally with an average broadband speed of 5.36 millions of bits per second (Mbps).

 Lithuania was first in the world with 31.67 Mbps followed by South Korea 30.59 Mbps and Latvia in third position with 27.42 Mbps.

 The index listed Ghana Telecom (6.13 Mbps), Zipnet/Broadband Home Limited (2.02 Mbps) and Scancom Limited (1.51 Mbps) as the major Internet service providers (ISPs) in the country.

 Ookla is a broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications. The company’s software and methodologies set the broadband industry standards for accuracy, popularity, ease of use and the subsequent development of statistical data. 

The broadband is what?

Upon landing the various offshore fibre optic cables - a technology that uses glass (or plastic) threads (fibers) to transmit data, at the shores of the country, SAT 3, Glo One, Main One and now West Africa Computer Systems (WACS), indicated the importance of the project.

One key thing the players mentioned in the various statements during ceremonies to outdoor the cables is the ability of the cables to increase the broadband speed to allow for fast downloading of data among other thing using the internet.

The term bandwidth refers to the amount of information that can be passed through a communications channel in a given amount of time; that is, the capacity of the channel. It is often expressed in bits per second, or alternatively bytes per second, leading to lots of confusion. Bandwidth figures are used to express the capacity of a network link or interface (e.g., a 100Mbps Ethernet interface) or the rate of information transfer (e.g. a file downloading at 3.2KB/s).

Broadband speed is the rate that information is sent (upload speed) or received (download speed) on your broadband line. It is measured in 'Mb' ('megabits per second') - a unit of data transfer to and from a computer storage device.

Broadband usage refers to the volume of information a user is allowed to use over your broadband connection each time.

 In using the broadband, it is easy for the user to measure the strength of the service provided.

In doing so one must ensure that one is not using his/her Internet connection for anything else while the test runs. It is also advised that multiple tests are run at different times of the day; peak hours may make a significant difference.

Reaction by Telecoms Chamber

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications shares the view that most of our mobile operators have upgraded their 3G networks to deliver greater speed. The detail behind the figures shows vast improvements in the speed of internet cafes in Ghana, and competitive consumer broadband tariffs.  All of these factors have added to our African leading performance.

According to the Chamber, Ghana’s ranking has been growing over the last 2 years.  Ghana was 157^th two years ago. The driver of sustainability is internet adoption. As more people surf on the internet at home, at work or on their mobiles, we’ll see even further improvement in service and speed, and the industry will move to correspond with this demand.

Most sites and applications require high speed to work effectively, so if mobile operators and ISPs want to give their customers the best internet experience; they need to be able to deliver network speed that supports it. Our members have taken up that challenge and are conquering in Africa.

 “Our members are very proud that they are clearly a driving force in Ghana’s ranking as Ookla Net Index specifically mentioned three of them in the latest global Internet speed report”, the Chamber pointed out.

Conclusion.

The Chamber is of the view that broadband today, aside improving productivity and job creation establishes an enabling environment for businesses and the government as a whole. “As a Chamber, we are proud of this development and considering the global mobile data traffic growth figures, we can envisage a gradual increase data penetration in Ghana for which our members are investing to cater for that demand”, its said.