Data representing Arab countries’ digital infrastructure and internet services showed great differences when going from one country to another.
While Gulf states carry on steady progress in the realm of digital development, some countries maintain a fair standing, and other troubled Arab countries suffer from a catastrophic deterioration by both regional and international standards.
According to the latest international comparison of Arab countries’ internet speeds and packages, Bahrain ranked first in the Arab world and 90th worldwide, with an average internet speed of 5.05 Mbps, making clear progress from its previous global ranking at 96th place.
The United Arab Emirates ranked 97th worldwide with a speed of 4.35 Mbps, Jordan ranked 102nd with 4.11 Mbps, and Saudi Arabia ranked 104th globally at 4.09 Mbps.
Syria ranked 18th in the Arab world, and 194th worldwide with a speed of 0.81 Mbps, followed by Mauritania at 195th place globally with 0.70 Mbps, Somalia at 197 with 0.60 Mbps, and Yemen ranked last with a sluggish 0.31 Mbps.
Published by Cable, a worldwide broadband speed tracker, the 2018 World Broadband Speed League report ranked 200 countries around the world based on their average Internet speed.
Aggregate Internet speed was measured by uploading a 5 gigabyte (high definition) video. Statistics show that internet speeds have generally improved worldwide, with the average global internet speed rising from 6.96 Mbps in 2017 to 9.10 Mbps in 2018.
Singapore ranked first worldwide, with an average internet speed of 60.39 Mbps, Sweden ranked second with an average of 46.00 Mbps, while Denmark ranked third averaging 43.99 Mbps.
Norway ranked fourth with an average of 40.12 Mbps. Romania jumped 13 points from its previous ranking to fifth with 38.60 Mbps.
Lebanon ranked 160th in the world and 11th among a group of 21 Arab countries, with an average internet speed of 1.60 Mbps (compared with 1.07 megabytes per second in 2017).
According to available data, the time required to download a 5 GB high-definition video in Lebanon in 2018 was 7 hours, 6 minutes and 1 second.
Lebanon was followed by Sudan, Libya, Egypt and Algeria.
On a similar note, results of a recent e-government development survey for 2018 showed the UAE first in the Middle East and North Africa followed by Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Yemen ranked last in the Arab world and 186th worldwide, just behind Sudan, Syria, and Iraq.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs recently released the results of its 2018 survey, which includes 193 countries worldwide, for e-government development.
