Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan has improved its positions in terms of Internet penetration among individual users in the ranking of UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, the report "The State of Broadband 2016" states.

According to the research of 2015, Azerbaijan, rising by 27 points among 191 countries as compared to previous year, ranked 36 with a rate of 77 percent.

Thus, Azerbaijan occupies first place among CIS countries, leaving behind Russia (43rd place), Kazakhstan (45), Belarus (68), Armenia (72), Moldova (92), Ukraine (93), Georgia (99), Uzbekistan (106), Kyrgyzstan (120), Tajikistan (149) and Turkmenistan (160).

Azerbaijan also improved its position by the rate of Internet penetration among individual users in developing countries, rising up by 13 points to the 11th place among 147 countries. According to this indicator, Azerbaijan again occupies first place among the CIS countries.

In terms of fixed broadband Internet per 100 inhabitants, the index of Azerbaijan is 19.76 percent (53rd place). The extent of penetration of mobile broadband in the country was established at a rate of 60.92 percent (60th place).

Furthermore, Azerbaijan is the 13th out of 138 countries with an index of 76.7 percent by the level of Internet penetration among home users in developing countries.

According to a recent research of Statistical project Internet Live Stats, Azerbaijan became the 58th country in the world over number of its Internet users. So, the number of Azerbaijani Internet users exceeds 6 million, accounting for 61.1 percent of the country’s population.

The figure increased by 1.2 percent or approximately 72,000 people compared to the 2015 data.

Access to the Internet in Azerbaijan is growing through the support of a national strategy to develop the country into an information and communication technology (ICT) hub in the Caucasus region. The Azerbaijani government actively seeks for foreign partners to boost the IT sector of the country.

The country has recently started the use of 4G Internet service which is considered to be a brand-new technology in the system of mobile telephone network and creates an opportunity for the access to the high-speed Internet all over the country. The signal of the digital broadcasting covers approximately 99 percent of Azerbaijan.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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