Platform Data

The Internet Monitor platform makes the data we have aggregated more accessible to researchers, journalists, developers, and the general public. Information on each of the indicators and data sources within the platform is below.

Internet Monitor Access Index

The Internet Monitor Access Index contains 15 indicators that measure Internet adoption, speed, price, and proxies for the ability of citizens to productively engage in online activity if given the opportunity: gender equality and education. A full explanation of how we collect, aggregate, and analyze this data is available here: A Hackable Access Index.

Download the Access Index Data

IM Access Index Data (last updated July 1, 2014)

We are pleased to make 14 of the 15 indicators* in our access index available for download. Please see the data file for specific usage guidelines.

*NOTE: Please see "Active mobile broadband subscription rate," below, for information on why we are unable to make this indicator available for download.

Adoption

From the International Telecommunication Union

The International Telecommunication Union’s Data and Statistics Division collects, verifies, and harmonizes telecommunication/ICT statistics worldwide. This data includes both data collected from national telecommunication/ICT ministries and regulatory authorities and from national statistical offices. For specific indicators, see the ITU’s Statistics page. For definitions of each indicator, see the ITU Handbook for the Collection of Administrative Data on Telecommunications/ICT and Definitions of World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators.

  • Percentage of individuals using the Internet
    Includes users who have accessed the Internet over the last twelve months, and excludes users who have not accessed the Internet since one year previously. Generally based on survey data.
  • Percentage of households with Internet
    Measures the proportion of households with access to Internet service, including dial-up, leased lines, and broadband. Generally based on survey data.
  • Wired Internet subscription rate
    Also listed as “Fixed (wired) Internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants”; measures both the number of active fixed (wired) Internet subscriptions at speeds less than 256 kbps (kilobits per second), such as dial-up and other fixed non-broadband subscriptions, and total fixed (wired) broadband subscriptions.
  • Active mobile broadband subscription rate
    Also listed as “Mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants”; measures both standard mobile broadband and dedicated mobile broadband subscriptions to the public Internet. Covers actual subscribers, not potential subscribers, even though the latter may have broadband-enabled handsets.
    NOTE: The data we are using on active mobile broadband subscription rates comes from the 2013 edition of the ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database. The ITU's policies on use of information in this database prevent us from placing this database on an external website. We are actively seeking an alternate source of mobile broadband subscription data. In the meantime, mobile broadband subscription data from 2010 can be found in the country tables appendix of "Maximizing Mobile," a 2012 report published by the World Bank.

Speed & Quality

From Akamai

Akamai’s State of the Internet report offers regular updates on connection speeds, broadband adoption, and more. For more information on Akamai’s methodology, see this blog post.

  • Broadband adoption rate
    Percentage of connections to the Akamai platform that are at or over 4 Mbps (megabits per second)
  • High broadband adoption rate
    Percentage of connections to the Akamai platform within a country that are at or over 10 Mbps (megabits per second)
  • Average connection speed (kbps)
    Measures how quickly (in kilobits per second) data can be transferred from the Internet to a local computer; averages all of the connection speeds calculated over a period of time from the unique IP addresses determined to be in a specific country
  • Average peak connection speed (kbps)
    Averages the maximum measured connection speeds from each unique IP address in a country

From NetIndex

NetIndex, a project of Ookla, collects over 1.5 billion records from broadband speed and quality test results from Speedtest.net.  This data was previously made available under a Creative Commons license; in the fall of 2015, Ookla discontinued publication of this data. 

  • R-factor
    A numeric expression of voice quality that takes into account both user perceptions (such as recency and delay) and the cumulative effect of equipment impairments (such as packet loss and packet delay variation, or jitter). Lower numbers indicate greater equipment impairment or perceived poor voice quality.
  • Average download speed (kbps)
    Measures the average download speed in kilobits per second of connections to the Speedtest.net platform from a country.
  • Average upload speed (kbps)
    Measures the average upload speed in kilobits per second of connections to the Speedtest.net platform from a country.

Price

The broadband pricing metric is drawn from the December 2013 release of the international broadband service pricing dataset produced by Google Policy by the Numbers working with Communications Chambers. This dataset includes over 1,800 service plans for 90 countries collected from the web pages of broadband service providers. To generate the broadband pricing figures presented here we divided these service options into 5 tiers based on the advertised download speed:

  • Tier 1: <= 1 Mbps
  • Tier 2: 1 to 4 Mbps
  • Tier 3: 4 to 10 Mbps
  • Tier 4: 10 to 25 Mbps
  • Tier 5: > 25 Mbps

For each country, we calculate an average price of the plans offered for each tier expressed in US dollars in purchasing power parity terms. These average costs per country per tier are then converted into a proportion of per capita income to produce a rough measure of the ability for households to purchase a broadband connection in each country. These aggregate measures mask considerable variation within countries, overstating the burden on wealthy households and underestimating the proportionate costs for lower income households.

Finally, we produce an overall broadband cost index that aggregates the proportionate costs across each tier for each country. To calculate this index we start by transforming the data (price as a proportion of per capita income) into log form to flatten the distribution—the average price for broadband in many countries is several times greater than per capita income, while for others it is below 1%. We then normalize the data to generate a 0 - 1 range across all countries for each tier. The overall index for each country is a simple average of the normalized scores for each tier. This allows us to compare and aggregate scores across different tiers, and between countries that do not all offer plans in each of the tiers.

The aggregate numbers for each tier and the overall price index are included in the IM Access Index Data File (last updated July 1, 2014). The raw price data and our calculations are available here: IM Broadband Pricing Data (last updated July 1, 2014).

Education (Literacy & Gender Equality)

From Wikipedia

Wikipedia's List of countries by literacy rate contains data collected by the CIA World Factbook and data reported by individual countries.

  • Literacy rate
    Measures the percentage of the population age 15 and above who can read and write. Historically, this data has been based on self reported ability levels; UNESCO is in the process of adopting a short reading assessment as a more standard measure.

From the United Nations

The United Nations Statistics Division collects and provides social and economic statistics on UN Member States. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics provides statistics on education, science and technology, culture, and communication. UN Data aggregates statistical information from multiple UN databases and makes it available online.

Additional Data

In addition to the indicators in the Access Index, Internet Monitor also provides a range of other data and information on online content controls, online activity, and general demographics.

Control

From Herdict

Herdict is a user-driven platform for identifying web blockages—including denial of service attacks, censorship, and other filtering—as they happen. Internet Monitor displays the following data from Herdict on each country's "Control" page, where available:

  • The total number of "inaccessible" and "accessible" reports
  • The country's rank in number of reports, as compared to other countries
  • Top reported sites in each of four categories: political, social, Internet tools, and other

From Mapping Local Internet Control

The Berkman Klein Center’s Mapping Local Internet Control project explores how autonomous systems—generally Internet service providers, but also large companies, universities, and other such organizations who act as independent entities on the Internet—in a given country connect to one another and to the rest of the world, with a particular eye for developing metrics for the relative costs of controlling the Internet in each country. Please see the project’s data files, methods page, and 2011 report for more information.

  • IP addresses per point of control
    Roughly measures the number of different organizations required to have access to the traffic of the large majority of users within the country. The number of IP addresses for each country refers to allocated rather than actively used addresses; a point of control is defined as the minimum number of autonomous systems required to connect to 90 percent of the IP addresses in the country.

From the OpenNet Initiative

The OpenNet Initiative’s data provides an overview of the most recent ONI ratings of the breadth and depth of Internet censorship in 74 countries across four content categories (political, social, Internet tools and conflict/security), as well measures of how transparently and consistently this filtering is applied. For more information on the ONI’s data collection methods, please see the ONI FAQ. For the ONI dataset, please see the ONI’s data page. For ONI's testing lists and additional data, please see the GitHub account of Citizen Lab, one of the OpenNet Initiative's three constituent partners.

  • Filtering: political
    Measures filtering primarily of websites that express views in opposition to those of the current government. Content more broadly related to human rights, freedom of expression, minority rights, and religious movements is also considered here.
  • Filtering: social
    Measures filtering of material related to sexuality, gambling, and illegal drugs and alcohol, as well as other topics that may be socially sensitive or perceived as offensive.
  • Filtering: conflict/security
    Measures filtering of content related to armed conflicts, border disputes, separatist movements, and militant groups.
  • Filtering: Internet tools
    Measures filtering of websites that provide e-mail, Internet hosting, search, translation, Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service, and circumvention methods.
  • Filtering (transparency)
    Measures how transparently filtering is applied.
  • Filtering (consistency)
    Measures how consistently filtering is applied.

Activity

Internet Monitor is working with Morningside Analytics to map blogospheres and Twitterspheres around the world. Data from these maps, along with links to related research publications, is displayed on each country's "Activity" page, where available. Current maps include:

Demographics

From the United Nations

From the World Bank

The World Bank’s Open Data site provides free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.

  • GDP per capita (current USD)
    GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by midyear population. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in current US dollars.
  • GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)
    GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP as the U.S. dollar has in the United States. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in current international dollars based on the 2011 ICP round.
  • Population
    Measures a country’s total population.

Download our Platform Data
(last updated July 1, 2014)

Interested in the data in our dashboard? Check out our Dashboard Data page.

Curious about the Internet Monitor Access Index? A Hackable Access Index explains.

Questions? See our FAQ.