Johannesburg - South Africa’s economic powerhouse Johannesburg is
Africa’s highest ranked city in Ericsson’s global ICT index, but the
city’s scoring is “relatively weak” when compared to other global hubs.
The
telecoms equipment maker on Monday released its 2014 Networked Society
City Index, which measures 40 cities’ levels of ICT maturity.
Factors
that the report identifies includes how cities leverage ICT investments
for economic, social and environmental development: concepts Ericsson
calls the "triple bottom line" effect.
And South Africa’s
Johannesburg scored 29 out of 40 cities on the index. The biggest city
in South Africa also edged Nigeria’s Lagos, ranked 38, and Egypt’s
Cairo, which placed 35 in the index.
Other South African cities such as Cape Town and Durban do not appear in the index.
Meanwhile, the top five cities in the index are Stockholm, London, Paris, Singapore and Copenhagen.
“Although,
the overall score is relatively weak, Johannesburg presents a mixed
picture when it comes to the ICT dimension,” says Ericsson on its online
profile of Johannesburg's ICT ranking.
“On the one hand, the ICT
infrastructure is quite underdeveloped with slow fixed broadband
speeds, and a large share of the population lacks access to the
internet.”
“On the other hand, app coverage is average,
smartphone penetration is slightly above average, and the share of
people using the internet is relatively high in relation to the low
access rate,” notes Ericsson.
However, Ericsson does say that regardless of these challenges, Johannesburg is the telecommunications hub of South Africa.
“The
city hosts the headquarters of numerous local and international
organisations, and serves as the base for multinational corporations
operating in the rest of the continent,” adds Ericsson.
Ericsson further notes that the “city performs better in the triple bottom line index than in ICT maturity”.
Other
broader findings of the Ericsson report include that cities with low
ICT maturity are improving their ICT maturity faster than high
performing cities.
Ericsson calls this the “catch-up effect” and
says this even gives these cities the chance to leapfrog by immediately
adopting advanced mobile technology.
* Follow @GarethvanZyl on Twitter. For more tech news, follow Fin24tech @Fin24_Tech.
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