Despite announcements by the authorities on wide-spread digitalization, the Internet connection in Turkmenistan remains slow and unstable.
A correspondent of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” has measured the Internet connection speed in Ashgabat.According to the package rate, the speed of 256 Kbt/sec is offered by the only Internet provider in the country, “Turkmentelecom”, at a monthly fee of 150 manats (which is equivalent to 10% of an average salary).
However, judging by the test result, it hardly reaches half of the publicized speed at 130 Kbt/sec.
According to several sources of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”, the connection speed is extremely unstable and fluctuates considerably within a 24 hour period depending on the line occupancy.
It should be highlighted that this is the slowest and the cheapest of the proposed unlimited Internet service packages.
The fastest accessible advertised Internet speed for individuals in Turkmenistan is 2 Mb/sec (2048 Kbit/sec), which will cost a subscriber 350 manats per month.
The advertised connection speed of 10 Mbit/sec is available for legal entities. Turkmen privately-owned and state-run companies are obliged to pay 4200 manats a month for the package, whereas a fee of $3638 is charged to foreign state-run businesses and $4561 to private companies.
According to data from the global network Speedtest, which can be used to test connection speeds the world’s average connection speed as of today is 73,5 Mbit/sec.
Apart from low speed, Internet users in Turkmenistan face censorship-related issues.Independent web-based resources devoted to Turkmenistan, as well as social networks and Messengers are inaccessible to the country’s residents.
Furthermore, on a regular basis, local special services block VPN applications which can be used to bypass the restrictions, and persecute specialists who install software to users.