Nepal among countries with slowest mobile internet

Kathmandu, Sept. 24 — Nepal was ranked 130 out of 145 countries in mobile internet speed by the latest Speedtest Global Index by Ookla.

The survey conducted by the internet testing and analysis firm recorded Nepal’s average mobile internet speed at 10.78 megabytes per second (Mbps) against the global average of 28.02 Mbps.

The ranking has put Nepal a few points ahead of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. South Korea, with 111 Mbps of mobile data speed, is placed at the top of the list.

The publication of the index comes at a time when the country is seeing a surge in the number of mobile broadband users. As per the latest telecommunications report issued by the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, the number of mobile internet users totalled 14.65 million as of April 2019, up 11 percent from last year.

According to Min Prasad Aryal, spokesperson for the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, affordability issues and slow expansion of 4G services and poor 3G coverage have led to people experiencing low data speeds despite a growth in the number of mobile internet users.

“The situation is expected to change in favour of mobile internet users as state-owned Nepal Telecom and telecom giant Ncell expedite their 4G service expansion drive,” said Aryal. “Also, with the number of mobile broadband users expanding, telecom operators have been focusing on increasing investments in high capacity infrastructure, but the results are yet to be seen.”

According to the Management Information System report released by the telecommunications authority on Tuesday, nearly 4 million new users overcame the digital divide in 2018-19.