Afrigather For the previous 4 years, Surfshark, a cybersecurity firm, has carried out surveys that consider the digital high quality of life (DQL) obtainable by residents throughout the globe. In its latest report that evaluated 117 nations—92% of the world’s inhabitants—Nigeria ranked seventh in Africa and 86th on the planet concerning the digital well-being accessible to its residents.
Surfshark evaluates nations based mostly on 5 elementary digital well-being pillars: web high quality, e-government, e-infrastructure, web affordability, and e-security. Whereas the African nation fought its approach to the 66th place in e-security, it did poorly within the web affordability indicator, rating 114th on a worldwide scale. Different metrics comparable to e-infrastructure, e-government, and web high quality additionally noticed Nigeria file low rankings on the 86th, ninety fifth, and 99th positions, respectively.
Nigeria’s abysmal ranking for web affordability doesn’t come as a shock. Final 12 months, the West African large was reported to have the least affordable internet on the planet. Based on the Alliance for Inexpensive Web (A4AI), the price of 1GB needs to be capped at 2% of one’s monthly income, however that’s removed from the fact in Nigeria, a rustic with a minimal wage of ₦30,000 and a median price of 1GB for ₦1,000.
To afford cell web, this report reveals that Nigerians—at quarter-hour of labor monthly—should work twice greater than Kenyans and 183 occasions greater than Israelis, who’re having fun with the perfect digital high quality of life globally.
Regardless of the low web high quality within the nation, mounted broadband presently prices Nigerians a median of 36 hours and 13 minutes of working time each month. To cap this, inflation in Nigeria has been on the rise, additional lowering the power of Nigerians to afford web providers and making a wider digital divide. Between final 12 months and now, Nigerians should work an additional 13 minutes and 16 seconds to afford the identical cell web service.
Admittedly, costly web is not only a Nigerian downside. In 2019, 57% of the world’s population couldn’t afford greater than 500 MB of cell information in a month. Additionally, excessive web prices appear constant in Africa, with 1GB going for as excessive as $8 in Gabon and $2.78 in Nigeria, in comparison with $0.26 in India and $0.51 in Ukraine.
Maybe, the consistency of low digital high quality of life in Africa is why Nigeria, regardless of rating low for many of the standards used within the DQL evaluation, remains to be capable of function in Africa’s high 10 because the seventh greatest nation within the area with regard to digital well-being.
Towering on the primary place in Africa, with an web pace that doubles that of Nigeria, is South Africa, which ranks 66th within the world index (from 64 final 12 months). Kenya, the East African digital epicentre which ranks fifth within the continent, apparently has a 5% slower cell web pace when in comparison with Nigeria. Northern African nations collectively ranked excessive on Africa’s high 10, with Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria rating second, third, fourth, fifth, and ninth, respectively. Ghana and Senegal, rating eighth and tenth, joined Nigeria as the highest West African nations within the report.
In comparison with its 86th rating in 2021, Nigeria notably dropped by 4 factors within the 2022 DQL report. That is noteworthy, seeing that since final 12 months, cell web within the nation has improved by 10.8% (2.5 Mbps), and stuck broadband pace has grown by 15.9% (2.6 Mbps). Nevertheless, improved web pace can do little when customers’ general web expertise is unsatisfying. To evaluate general web high quality, Surfshark mixed web pace metrics with web stability and development. This general indicator is the place Nigeria ranked 99th on the planet, 26% worse than the worldwide common.
Total, of all 117 nations surveyed, three African nations, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Cameroon landed the underside positions because the worst nations to reside in, going by the digital high quality of life. However, Israel, edging Denmark to second from its two-year lead, was adopted by Germany as the perfect nation to reside in with respect to digital well-being.
“Whereas nations with a powerful digital high quality of life are typically these of superior economies, our world examine discovered that cash doesn’t all the time purchase digital happiness,” defined Gabriele Racaityte-Krasauske, head of PR at Surfshark.
“That’s the reason, for the fourth 12 months in a row, we proceed analysing the digital high quality of life to see how completely different nations sustain with offering the essential digital requirements for his or her residents. Most significantly, our analysis seeks to point out the complete image of the worldwide digital divide that hundreds of thousands of individuals are affected by,” he added in a press release shared with TechCabal.
Globally, web prices have gotten increased, however Africans appear to have it worse, as they need to work longer for web connections which might be typically poor in comparison with world requirements. In some nations, comparable to Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda, folks work a median of two weeks to earn the most affordable mounted broadband web bundle. This development arguably offers context to the low internet penetration within the continent, particularly as web is a secondary want for many Africans.
