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Rabat - With a score of 50.83 out of 100, Morocco is ranked third among developing countries in the 2014 Internet Affordability Index released by the Alliance for Affordable Internet, a coalition of private sector, public sector and civil society organizations whose objective is to make internet more affordable around the world.
According to the report, although Rwanda secured the top spot among developing countries, Morocco has the top score among all developing countries in the infrastructure sub-index. The study praised Morocco's growing investments in fiber optic national backbone networks which have had a "dramatic impact on prices."
The report said that the price of a monthly entry level mobile broadband package in Morocco dropped fourfold from US 49.4 in 2013 to US 11.9 in 2014, and mobile broadband penetration currently stands at 15 percent, while fixed broadband penetration remains at 10 percent.
Quoting data from to the Moroccan telecommunications regulatory agency (ANRT), the report said that 88 percent of the country's 8.5 million mobile users are also mobile internet subscribers, but the majority of Internet users are in urban areas.
The Internet Affordability Index is composed of two sub-indices that measure the impact of two critical drivers to affordability: infrastructure and access.
The Infrastructure sub-index in which the kingdom scored the highest among other developing countries, measures the current extent of infrastructure deployment and operations, alongside the policy and regulatory frameworks in place to incentivize and enable cost-effective investment in future infrastructure expansion.
The access sub-index, however, measures current broadband adoption rates and the policy and regulatory frameworks in place to encourage growth and ensure provision of affordable and equitable access.
The 2014 edition of the Internet Affordability Index looked into the policy and regulatory environments in 51 countries, and analyses the effectiveness of government programmes in addressing the divides and barriers that prevent affordable access to the Internet.
The study has also found that 70 percent of the households in the developing world do not have Internet access. It added that women are far less likely to be able to access the Internet affordably than men especially that research has shown that women, on average, earn 30% – 50% less than men.
"This income disparity diminishes the ability of women to afford to access, adopt, and benefit from a broadband connection. The Internet access gender gap is apparent throughout the world, although the extent of the gap varies from region to region," the study said.
This year, Costa Rica tops the overall rankings, followed by Colombia, Turkey, Malaysia and Peru. Rwanda topped the ranking among developing countries, followed by Nigeria, Morocco, Uganda and Kenya.
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