Marcin Frąckiewicz

Dhiraagu (Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun) was established in 1988 as the Maldives’ first telecom operator and former state monopoly. By 2000, basic telephone service had reached all inhabited islands and dial-up internet was available nationwide. In 2003 Focus Infocom received a second ISP license, and in 2005 Wataniya (Ooredoo Maldives) entered mobile service, ending Dhiraagu’s 17‑year monopoly. The Maldives’ telecom market is a duopoly dominated by Dhiraagu and Ooredoo, with Dhiraagu posting about MVR 2.8 billion revenue in 2019 and Ooredoo about MVR 2.03 billion, and Dhiraagu is 52% owned by Batelco and roughly 42% by the Maldivian government. 2G service

Thailand connected to the international Internet in the late 1980s and moved to full TCP/IP by 1992. In 2004, unmetered flat-rate broadband plans were introduced, spurring rapid broadband growth from 2005 onward. The Net Pracharat Village Broadband Internet project extends high-speed internet to over 75,000 villages. Thailand’s fixed broadband ranking rose from 34th in 2018 to 11th fastest globally by January 2024. By 2022, about 21.3 million households in Thailand had fixed broadband, nearly doubling from 2016. In late 2023 AIS acquired fixed ISP 3BB and its fiber assets, becoming the largest fixed broadband provider with about 4.7 million subscribers

Nepal’s mobile market is led by Nepal Telecom with about 57% share, Ncell around 36%, and Smart Telecom about 6%. WorldLink Communications is the largest fixed broadband ISP with 972,781 subscribers as of 2024, roughly 30% of Nepal’s fixed broadband connections. FTTH subscribers surpassed 2.5 million in January 2023 and reached about 2.89 million by late 2024, with home plans typically 20 Mbps to 100–300 Mbps and premium options up to 600 Mbps or 1 Gbps. 4G coverage reached about 88% of the population by 2023, with Nepal Telecom reporting 11.5 million 4G users and total mobile broadband subscriptions around

Telkomsel dominates Indonesia’s mobile market with about 45% of subscribers (roughly 153 million) in 2024, and IndiHome now accounts for roughly 75% of fixed broadband after the integration. IndiHome fiber-to-the-home footprint has passed 38 million homes, with at least around 10 million connected by mid-2024. The Palapa Ring backbone spans over 13,000 km of fiber, linking western, central, and eastern Indonesia to provide high-capacity backhaul beyond Java. Internationally, Indonesia is tied to multiple undersea cables, including new trans-Pacific links Project Echo and Bifrost (Meta) that will boost trans-Pacific capacity by about 70%, along with the Apricot cable planned to deliver

Univision LLC leads Mongolia’s internet market with about 62% market share and is part of the Unitel group, offering fiber-optic broadband and IPTV. MobiCom Corporation (including Mobinet) is the second-largest ISP with roughly 15% market share, and operates both mobile networks and internet services. Skymedia Corporation holds around 10% of the ISP market and Mobinet LLC about 3%, with smaller providers like ONDO filling the rest. In mobile, Mongolia is served by four operators—MobiCom, Unitel, Skytel, and G-Mobile—with 2014 data showing MobiCom at about 39.5% and Unitel at about 35.5% of mobile subscriptions. About 69% of Mongolia’s population lives in

As of mid-2024, the UAE’s telecom market is effectively a duopoly dominated by Etisalat (e& UAE) with about 12.9 million mobile subscribers (~61% share) and by du with about 8.2 million subscribers (~39% share; both majority government-owned). Abu Dhabi became the first capital city globally to be fully connected by fiber optics in 2011, and by 2024 the UAE achieved 99.3% FTTH penetration, the highest in the world according to the FTTH Council for the eighth consecutive year. The UAE launched the first commercial 5G network in May 2019, and by late 2023 5G coverage reached about 97–98% of the

Kwangmyong is North Korea’s nationwide domestic intranet that is completely isolated from the World Wide Web and hosts roughly 1,000–5,500 internal websites. Global Internet access is restricted to a tiny elite; only a few dozen websites are reachable from abroad, with a 2016 leak noting 28 .kp domains and North Korea having about 1,024 Internet addresses. Star Joint Venture Co., created around 2009 as a North Korea–Thailand partnership between the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and Loxley Pacific, is the gatekeeper for international connectivity and IP allocations. Koryolink launched North Korea’s 3G network in December 2008; by 2011 it had

SoftBank Corp. holds about 21% of fixed internet subscriptions, KDDI about 19%, NTT Communications (OCN) about 12%, NTT Docomo about 8%, and J:COM about 4%. Japan’s mobile market is led by NTT Docomo with about 42% of mobile subscriptions, KDDI around 30%, SoftBank roughly 25–26%, and Rakuten Mobile about 2% as of 2022. As of 2023, there are approximately 36.6 million FTTH subscriptions out of ~44 million fixed broadband lines, meaning over 80% of fixed connections are fiber. By end of 2024, fiber networks reached about 99.9% of premises, with 1 Gbps residential plans standard and 10 Gbps services like

As of early 2024, about 22.7 million Kenyans were internet users, representing 40.8% penetration. Safaricom had 545,812 fixed subscriptions and 36.4% of the fixed broadband market as of mid-2024. Jamii Telecom Faiba held 24.0% of the fixed broadband market, while Wananchi (Zuku) had 17.5%. Poa Internet accounted for about 13.2% of fixed broadband market share. Starlink entered Kenya in July 2023 and reached 16,746 subscribers by January 2025 (about 1.1% of subscriptions). NOFBI aims to reach 100,000 km of fiber by 2026 and has connected all 47 counties. Safaricom expanded its fiber footprint to 14,000 km by March 2023 and

Kazakhtelecom accounts for roughly 60% of Kazakhstan’s telecom market by revenue in 2023 and owns major stakes in mobile operators Kcell and Tele2/Altel. Kar-Tel/Beeline Kazakhstan (VEON) holds about 28% market revenue and is a leading mobile and broadband provider. In internet traffic by autonomous networks, Kazakhtelecom is largest at around 26%, Beeline about 20%, Tele2 Kazakhstan about 19%, and Kcell about 9%, indicating a consumer market duopoly. The Digital Kazakhstan program has expanded fiber nationwide, deploying more than 20,000 kilometers of fiber by 2021 and achieving 118 cities and over 4,500 villages with broadband, covering 97.2% of the population. By

Infrastructure and Major Service Providers Nigeria’s internet infrastructure relies on a combination of undersea fiber-optic cables, terrestrial networks, and a handful of dominant service providers. Multiple international submarine cables land in Nigeria, connecting it to global internet hubs. Key cables include: These undersea cables terminate in Lagos and other coastal landing stations, feeding into national fiber backbones. A number of companies have deployed fiber-optic networks crisscrossing the country, including Phase3 Telecom, MainOne, Globacom, Suburban Telecom, and MTN​ Ecoi. Internet exchange points (IXPs) in at least five regions help route domestic traffic locally​ Ecoi, improving speed and reducing costs. Nigeria’s internet

Sudan’s internet backbone is centered at Port Sudan and links land via the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) and FLAG/FALCON, with terrestrial fiber reaching Egypt and Ethiopia. Sudatel (Sudani) is over 60% state-owned and operates the national backbone along with fixed-line, mobile, and internet services under the Sudani brand. Zain Sudan, a subsidiary of Kuwait’s Zain Group, is the largest mobile operator with roughly 50% of the mobile market and offers nationwide 2G/3G/4G services. MTN Sudan, part of South Africa’s MTN Group, holds about a 25% share of the mobile market and provides mobile voice and data. Canar Telecom is

Yemen’s bandwidth is dominated by a single aging subsea cable, the FALCON/FLAG system, landing at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, with only a narrow backup via Djibouti and some satellite links. During the civil war, land fiber links to Saudi Arabia were destroyed, leaving Yemen largely dependent on undersea cables. AdenNet was launched in mid-2018 by the internationally recognized government in Aden to provide fiber to institutions and 4G LTE to consumers, independently of Sana’a’s infrastructure and with tens of thousands of subscribers. There are four mobile operators—YOU (Yemeni Omani United, formerly MTN Yemen), Sabafon, Yemen Mobile, and Y