Nigeria was placed 16th out of 46 African countries in terms of Internet speed, with Morocco, South Africa, and Tunisia having the fastest mobile download speeds.
In its Africa’s Mobile Network Champions report for 2021, which was issued over the weekend, crowdsourcing business SpeedChecker evaluated countries and mobile carriers in two categories: fastest mobile network champion and best mobile coverage champion.
The data for the poll was collected from end-user devices running Android and iOS platforms between January 2021 and January 2022, according to the company. Over 704 million coverage samples and 3.4 million speed test samples were collected by SpeedChecker across Africa.
While Nigeria landed in 16th place with an average download speed of 11.55 megabits per second, with Airtel emerging as the quickest network, Maroc Telecom in Morocco came out on top with an average country download speed of 23.57 megabits per second. MTN in South Africa came in second with an average of 19.20 Mbit/s. Tunisie Telecom, a Tunisian operator, came in third with 18.19 Mbit/s.
The central African Republic was the slowest country in 46th place, with an average country download speed of just 3.97 Mbit/s, followed by Mauritania at 4.23 Mbit/s and Libya at 4.28 Mbit/s.
Orange was the fastest operator in three of the top ten nations, according to SpeedChecker: Mali (4th), Botswana (6th), and Liberia (9th), and was the quickest overall in eight of the 46 countries tested. In four countries, MTN was the fastest, while Airtel was the fastest in three.
Nigeria was ranked 12th in terms of mobile coverage, with MTN leading the way. Mauritius, Comoros, and Seychelles were placed first, second, and third, respectively, in the survey. Mauritius Telecom, Comores Telecom, and Airtel in Seychelles were the mobile network champions in these countries for coverage. Vodafone Egypt and Vodacom South Africa tied for fourth place in terms of coverage.
In the meantime, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has stated that the National Emergency Number, 112, which it established and oversees, is the most critical infrastructure required for the successful implementation of the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance Systems (NEMSAS), which was recently launched by the Federal Ministry of Health.
In a statement, at the weekend, NCC explained that by integrating disparate Emergency Medical Services (EMS) resources available in Nigeria, the scheme would coordinate national rollout of EMS, enabling services to be provided through relationship with other entities and organizations.
Danbatta, who was represented at the forum by the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, said: “As the national telecoms regulator, NCC is providing the communication ingredient for the initiative through its emergency number, thereby allowing those in health-related emergencies to be able to reach out to stakeholders that are involved in the NEMSAS project.
He added: “The NCC has been at the forefront of deploying ICT to drive the implementation of various government projects and initiatives. The number is at the heart of this initiative to provide a national number to Nigerians who are in need of health-related emergencies to be able to call Emergency Response Agencies (ERAs) or organizations in life-threatening situations.”