The UAE has been ranked for the fastest download speed in the region of home internet. However, experts said that the services must be provided at a cost in the countries that have a small amount of populations. The manager of telecoms and networking in the International Data Corporation, Krishna Chita said that when the population of the country is smaller than the others, it was more expensive per person for providing the level of service.
He also said that any country of such a size would be facing similar issues, as the level of services could be done only up to a particular level without hampering the profit margins.
In the United Arabs Emirates, the cost of an average broadband package is about Dh577, when compared with the overall cost of the world, the highest charges of broadband per month is in Mauritania with Dh2,820 and the lowest in Ukraine with Dh18.
One of the surveys conducted by a consumer website compared the prices of broadband in 195 countries and it also checked the speed of download in the United Arabs Emirates from the month of May last year to this year. The report said that only the UAE offered an average speed significantly higher than 6Mbps, with its download speed of 9.62Mbps.
The manager said although the UAE is not a very densely populated country but it was still well connected when it came to speed and connectivity of broadband. He added that another factor that influenced the prices of broadband in the UAE was the limited choice for the customers. The region had only two providers namely du and Etisalat. When it comes to other countries, customers had many choices and it resulted in the reduction of prices.