According to recent studies by Arab Advisors Group, here are some numbers that give us an idea about the penetration rates of broadband internet access around the Arab world.
By end of 2007, fixed line broadband penetration as a percent of total population ranged from 8% in Qatar to a mere 0.02% in Sudan.
Qatar, UAE and Bahrain lead with 8%, 7.8% and 7% respectively. They are followed by Saudi Arabia (2.4%), Jordan (1.6%), Palestine (1.5%), Morocco (1.5%), Tunisia (1.1%), Lebanon (1%), Algeria (0.9%), Oman (0.7%), Egypt (0.6%), Mauritania (around 0.1%), Yemen (0.05%), Syria (0.04%) and Sudan (0.02%).
“While absolute broadband penetration in the Arab World may seem low by industrial countries standards, the effective household broadband penetration is much higher. This is related to higher number of people per household as well as line sharing. For example, a new Arab Advisors survey in Egypt revealed that 63.4% of Egyptian households that use the ADSL service, share their ADSL connection with neighbors. A massive 81.9% of households that use shared ADSL lines share them with more than three neighboring households.” Jawad J. Abbassi, Founder and General Manager of Arab Advisors Group noted.
“Based on the survey results, the average number of households sharing one ADSL connection is 2.98. Multiplying the reported number of lines by this figure yields an estimate for households with ADSL connections in Egypt of 956,000 households by end of 2007, much higher than the number of accounts. While ADSL sharing is illegal in many countries and does negatively affect quality, the Arab Advisors Group believes that the practice is widespread in the Arab World. The silver lining is that more households are connected to broadband Internet services which would positively affect adoption of Internet-based services such as e-commerce, multimedia, user generated content and e-government services.” Mr. Abbassi added.
As an Egyptian who share a ADSL connection its really true that it affect the quality of service.
I’ve tried to have my own but the payment are just too expensive of individuals. recently the prices in Egypt has dropped to half but still expensive.
Sooner Egypt will be completely covered with Wi-Fi or WiMax as part of project where people use pre-paid card to access internet anywhere and any time. Maybe it will solve the problem of sharing lines.
As an Egyptian who share a ADSL connection its really true that it affect the quality of service.
I’ve tried to have my own but the payment are just too expensive of individuals. recently the prices in Egypt has dropped to half but still expensive.
Sooner Egypt will be completely covered with Wi-Fi or WiMax as part of project where people use pre-paid card to access internet anywhere and any time. Maybe it will solve the problem of sharing lines.
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Hi! I'm Jake Bunce, the manager of Viettel ISP at http://www.adslviettel.com, and I think your post is awesome. It's hard to find quality information like this, I'm glad i found this, thanks for the valuable information.
But I have a suggestion: In my opinion the posts font and size is not the best typo for read. It is very uncomfortable.
Anyway, good work!
does anyone know the broadband penetration rate in Cairo? thanks a lot, I am doing a research on internet penetration in Egypt Hans Chang