Open Signal has taken a hard look at mobile networks around the world and published its findings that reveal the countries with the fastest mobile connections.

Top of the pops is South Korea. The East Asian nation has average speeds of 37.54Mbps. Just behind them is Norway (34.77Mbps) and Hungary (31.04Mbps).

Open Signal says that these speeds are derived from both 3G and 4G networks and its findings represent the average mobile data connection users might experience.

And what about South Africa?

Of the 87 countries Open Signal looked at, South Africa placed 48th. The firm found that on average our mobile internet speeds clocked in at 9.93Mbps.

This is – according to Open Signal’s research at least – the best average speed in Africa.

“Excuse me, do you have Wifi here?”

Given that South Africa’s speeds aren’t as good as the rest of the world, the natural assumption would be that we spend a lot more time on Wifi. As Open Signal’s research found, this isn’t the case.

On average, 37.57% of the time South Africans spend online is done through a Wifi connection.

In Nigeria that figure dips to 11.43%.

“In many developing and African and Asian countries, Wifi use was much less pronounced, which is likely indicative of their less robust broadband infrastructure,” explains Open Signal.

Things could get better for us here in South Africa insofar as internet in general goes but its quite nice to see the efforts of some giving us a leg up on the rest of the continent.

Now if we could just get those speeds to more people…

[Image – CC BY 2.0 Pixabay]