Nigeria ranks 13th on Broadband’s Adoption Index · As Internet traffic rises

Affordability Drivers Index (ADI) rankings of the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) has ranked Nigeria 13 out of 58 countries surveyed in terms of adoption and use of Internet access by its citizens.

The ADI does not measure actual broadband prices, nor does it tell how affordable broadband is in a given country. Instead, it scores countries across two main policy groups, which are infrastructure (extent to which ICT infrastructure has been deployed as well as the policy framework in place to encourage future infrastructure expansion) and access (that is current broadband adoption rates as well as the policy framework in place to enable equitable access).

However, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta at the just concluded ITU Telecoms World 2017 in Busan, South Korea, disclosed that broadband penetration in the country currently stands at 22 per cent.

Meanwhile, in a document made available to The Daily Times, A4AI explained that each country is awarded score (out of 100) across a range of variables within each grouping, and is then ranked against the other countries in the ADI. Higher scores point towards the existence of a combination of factors, which contribute to lower the cost structure for broadband provision and eventually lower prices.

High ADI scores are correlated with reduced broadband costs–both for industry and for consumers. The rankings reflect country’s relative performance compared to other countries.

This means that even if a country does reasonably well on the ADI, if it does not perform better than others then its ranking will not improve.