A latest global digital wellbeing study found that the UAE has the fastest mobile internet in Asia.
The UAE’s e-government services and e-infrastructure also figured in the global top list, ranked at 17th and 20th positions, respectively, according to the latest digital quality of life index (DQL) by Surfshark, the Netherlands-based leading VPN service company.
Surfshark, however, has ranked the UAE at 44 in the overall digital wellbeing this year, a slip of two positions from 2021.
The DQL research evaluates countries based on five fundamental digital wellbeing pillars – internet quality, e-government, e-infrastructure, internet affordability and e-security.
The 2022 DQL research, which examined more than 7.2 billion people, is mainly based on the UN open-source information, the World Bank, Freedom House and the International Communications Union sources.
Of the five digital life pillars, the UAE fared worst for e-security – ranking 97th and the best for internet quality, ranked at 3 globally.
Surfshark said UAE needs to improve by 380 percent on e-security to match the score of the best-ranking country – Greece.
According to the DQL report, fixed broadband internet has become less affordable worldwide for the second year in a row due to rising inflation, deepening the global digital divide further.
UAE’s internet quality exceptional
According to the DQL index, the UAE’s internet quality – in terms of speed, stability and growth, was exceptional, ranking 3rd and was 54 percent better than the global average.
“Since last year, mobile internet speed in the UAE has improved by 29.8 percent (56.8 Mbps), while its fixed broadband speed grew by 28.1 percent (42.5 Mbps), ” the DQL report said.
In comparison, Singapore’s residents enjoyed mobile speeds up to 104 Mbps/s and fixed to as much as 261 Mbps/s – the fastest internet in the world this year.
Global digital divide is now deeper than ever
Surfshark’s study revealed that broadband was getting less affordable each year globally, with countries with the poorest internet connection having to work for it the longest.
“While countries with a strong digital quality of life tend to be those of advanced economies, our global study found that money doesn’t always buy digital happiness,” Gabriele Racaityte-Krasauske, a senior executive at Surfshark, said.
The study said the UAE’s internet affordability ranks 75th in the world, with residents being able to buy 1GB of mobile internet for as cheap as 4 minutes 6 seconds of work per month, 4 times less than in Qatar.
“However, compared to Israel, which has the most affordable mobile internet on the planet (5s per 1GB), Emiratis work 50 times more,” the study said.
Fixed broadband costs Emiratis around 5 hours 45 minutes of their working time each month, according to the study.
Seven out of 10 highest-scoring countries on DQL index 2022 are in Europe, though Israel pushed Denmark to the second spot to bag the first rank this year.
Germany ranks 3rd, while France and Sweden round up the top five of the 117 evaluated nations.
Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Cameroon are the bottom five countries.
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