The World Economic Forum published its “Global Information Technology Report 2014”, which shows that South Africa’s telecoms and Internet services are very expensive when compared to international standards.

The report provides an assessment of networked readiness, or how prepared an economy is to apply the benefits of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to promote economic growth and well-being.

The report ranks the progress of 148 economies in leveraging ICTs to increase productivity, economic growth and the number of quality jobs.

The rankings also show how far some countries have gone in bridging the digital divide, and highlight the main strengths and weaknesses countries are facing.

South Africa’s Networked Readiness Index 2014

South Africa performed well in some areas of its network readiness, including the political and regulatory ICT environment in the country.

SA performed particularly well in the efficiency of the legal system in settling disputes and the efficiency of the legal system in challenging regulations.

South Africa also performed fairly well in the business and innovation environment. The best areas here are venture capital availability and the quality of management schools.

South Africa performed poorly when looking at the affordability of ICT services, the quality of its education, and government ICT usage.

According to the report, the country has very expensive pre-paid mobile cellular tariffs, and does not have enough competition in the telecoms space.

The following images give an overview of how South Africa stacked up against other countries.

More on SA telecoms rankings

South Africa’s network readiness index below par

The truth about broadband and cellular prices in SA