South Africa’s ranking in Cable.co.uk’s yearly benchmark of broadband pricing has improved to 93 – out of 195 countries – from a ranking of 102 in 2017.

Thirty-six South African broadband packages were measured, showing an average package cost a month of R782.19, or $55.25, in 2018, down from $58.84 last year.

The average cost per megabit a month equated to $3.49 this year, compared with the $4.04 registered in the prior year.

Overall, the global rankings registered sub-Saharan Africa as faring the worst, with all but 4 of the 31 countries ranked in the region placed within the most expensive half of the 195 countries reviewed.

Some 17 sub-Saharan African countries ranked in the most expensive quarter.

“Most sub-Saharan African nations fall in the bottom half (most expensive) of the table, and the region also contains the greatest density of countries in the 10% most expensive in the world, with Mali, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Namibia and Mauritania all among the ten most expensive [countries in terms of broadband pricing],” says Cable Consumer telecoms analyst Dan Howdle.

Réunion is the cheapest in the region, at a ranking of 48 overall, with an average package price of $35.45.

The rankings also reveal that Mauritania charges residential users an average of $768.16 a month – the most expensive broadband pricing in the world.

Mali ($160.53), Tanzania ($181.80), Burkina Faso ($201.94) and Namibia ($383.83) are also listed as among the top ten most expensive countries in the world.

While sub-Saharan Africa contained 31 qualifying countries within the pricing review, it was also home to the highest number of countries that failed to qualify, owing to insufficient or nonexistent fixed-line broadband packages and were excluded from the rankings altogether.

This included Central African Republic, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Togo, Uganda and Zambia, besides others.

Only four North Africa nations offer the qualifying broadband packages under review.

“Perhaps surprisingly – compared to the generally ‘very expensive’ sub-Saharan African nations – countries in Northern Africa all fell within the top 100 ‘cheapest’ countries in the world,” Howdle notes.

Egypt, at number nine, ranked within the top ten cheapest countries in the world for broadband, with an average package price of $13.58, while Tunisia secured a ranking of 27, with an average package price of $24.28.

While broadband is becoming faster, pricing remains stable, says Howdle.

“Despite many countries providing faster access year-on-year, and the price of broadband fluctuating – sometimes wildly – from country to country, on average, the price of broadband worldwide remains largely unchanged [at $72.92], falling just 1.64% since the fourth quarter of 2017,” he explains.

Global broadband speeds have accelerated 23% on average between 2017 and 2018, without similar shifts in pricing.

Another global trend revealed by the report is that an expensive broadband rate does not necessarily translate into quality, the best networks or the fastest speeds.

“The countries with slow, patchy broadband infrastructure that connects only a fraction of the population also tend to be the most expensive, while those with exceptional, often full-fibre infrastructure supplying the majority of the population tend to be the cheapest, if not in absolute terms, on a cost-per-megabit basis,” he explains.

Connectivity is most expensive in the developing and island nations of Africa – Asia, Oceania and Central and South America.

Ukraine is an exception, with broadband that is cheap and fast and with its cheapest package offering of 20 Mb/s.

However, while the UK is one of the cheapest countries in Western Europe, it is far from the fastest, ranking at 35 in terms of speed globally in Cable’s recent broadband speed study, and coming in as the fifteenth-fastest in Western Europe.

An abnormality is the US, where it costs seven times as much to get a broadband deal as it does to get one in Russia and over 64% more than it does in China.

“The US is a point of particular interest in the data. As arguably the world’s most technologically advanced Western nation, its broadband is shockingly expensive, compared with much of the world,” he highlights.

The ten most expensive broadband prices are in Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, Namibia, Laos, Paraguay, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Antigua and Barbuda and the Cook Islands.

“The expense comes from a combination of extremely low take-up, no economy of scale, and the fact that, in most cases, the price you pay will go in large part to actually building a physical line to your property, since few already exist. These works costs rise exponentially the further your abode sits from each country’s main urban centres,” Howdle says.

The cheapest packages come from Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Moldava, Syria, Israel, Egypt and Romania.