The popularity of mobile Internet is arguably the biggest cause of SA scoring poorly in a broadband quality survey, and has resulted in the country's perceived inability to meet the threshold of quality requirements for modern applications.
This is according to the third world broadband quality survey, conducted by Oxford University and networking company Cisco, which ranks SA 42nd globally out of 72 countries surveyed. The ranking is not much of an improvement from last year's study, which ranked SA 60th out of 66 countries.
SA saw a 10% increase in broadband quality during the past year, but still remains below par compared to global counterparts, even on the African continent where Ghana and Morocco ranked higher.
The study reported SA's average download speed to be 1 557Kbps; the average upload speed is 337Kbps and the average latency is 157ms.
When compared to the global standard - a download speed of 5 920Kbps, global upload speeds of 1 777kbps and a global latency of 142ms - the gap in broadband quality becomes more apparent.
Director of strategy for Cisco's Internet business solutions group, Reshaad Sha, argues that the findings must be put into perspective. He explains that mobile Internet is the more popular choice for connectivity in the country.
Mobile connectivity is inherently higher latency, he explains, which results in the low measurements found in the study.
Sha argues that there must be acceleration in the rollout and uptake of fixed broadband if SA's quality ranking is to improve.
“Service providers must invest in access networks a lot more and the investment must be in fibre,” he says.
He adds that SA's recent seat on the International Telecommunications Union may bode well for the improvement of broadband quality in the country, but predicts that the challenge lies in the translation of advice and resources into activity in the country.
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