Czechia is in 28th place in the world in terms of the quality of the digital environment, improving by four ranks compared to last year, according to a Digital Quality of Life survey shared by Surfshark. Denmark, South Korea, and Finland are in the top three.
However, in the evaluation of digital security, Czechia is the second best after Greece.
The study examined five areas of the digital environment — the availability of an Internet connection, its quality, digital infrastructure, digital security, and eGovernment, i.e. the management of public affairs using modern technologies. It focused on 110 countries, in which 90 percent of the world’s population lives.
In the final ranking, the Czech Republic was ranked as the second-best country in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland was better than the Czech Republic, finishing 25th and improving by 18 places compared to last year.
Compared to Poland, Czechia has worse internet access, poorer internet connection quality, and worse eGovernment. On the contrary, the digital infrastructure and digital security are better in the Czech Republic.
Although Czechia ranks 46th in the availability of the Internet, it has improved by 71 percent year-on-year in this indicator. Czechs now have to work two hours and 22 minutes to afford the cheapest broadband internet, and just over seven minutes to have 1 GB of the cheapest mobile internet. In Hungary, people only need to work a quarter of the time to afford mobile internet, and people in Poland only need an hour and 21 minutes of the time.
Poor quality and accessibility, good infrastructure
The Czech Republic has room for improvement in terms of the quality of its Internet connection, where it ranks 53rd out of all countries surveyed, the study states.
However, it managed to make it into the top 30 in the digital infrastructure, where it ranked higher than Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
In the overall ranking of Czechia, the factors that are dragging the country down are the accessibility of the Internet, where it is in 46th place, as well as the quality of connections, where it is up to 53rd place, and eGovernment, where it has reached only 39th place.
Neighboring Slovakia is 29th overall, just behind the Czech Republic. It improved by six places compared to last year.
“Digital opportunities have proven to be more important than ever during the coronavirus crisis,” said Vytautas Kaziukonis, CEO of Surfshark. According to him, it is therefore essential that each country provides adequate capacity for remote management of its economy.
Six European countries are in the top ten in addition to Denmark, which defended last year’s top spot. In third is Finland, seventh is France, eighth is Switzerland, ninth is Germany, and tenth is Britain. Ethiopia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Guatemala, and Angola are at the opposite end of the scale.
Title image: In this Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011, file photo, a Facebook User Operations Safety Team worker looks at reviews at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
