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Ari Kesisoglu, Managing Director of Google Middle East and North Africa, says Gulf countries have taken the lead in the region with regards to bandwidth capabilities. "Gulf countries have in general better internet infrastructure and bandwidth then the rest of Mena."
"Some countries in Mena have experienced significant improvement in bandwidth but the demand is increasing at the same time and the applications and services are demanding higher bandwidth. Many Mena countries have recognised the value of the internet and its contribution to the growth of the economy and working on improving the service."
Some Middle East economies have more means to invest in internet infrastructure than others, purely due to wealth, the primary factor in the 'digital ecosystem evolutionary process', as labelled by Kesisoglu.
YouTube's Feather aids video in limited bandwidth areas
New facilities designed for lower bandwidth areas, such as YouTube's Feather, are also helping accommodate sluggish connections. A consequence of rolling out higher quality HD video, most recently 1080p, is that playback will suffer due to limited bandwidth and/or processing power. With this in mind, YouTube recently launched a test version of Feather. The project, which is still in Beta, allows users to watch page video pages with the lowest latency possible.
Feather's features are severely limited and techniques are used to reduce the total amount of data consumed by the browser, explains Kesisoglu. "With Feather, the player still features prominently, but will default to standard quality video. Related videos, comments and other familiar features from the current watch page - which can take a lot of bandwidth - are kept to a minimum.
"All of this results in a user experience that aims to keep things simple and the videos loading and playing quickly. If we see adoption go up along with improvements in latency, we'll look to roll this out of 'TestTube' - our incubator for YouTube ideas - and make it more widely available."
YouTube's Feather is currently an opt-in beta and may not yet work for all videos. There are also multiple low-bandwidth codecs supported by YouTube for slower connections and mobile devices.
Bandwidth issues have not dampened Mena internet adoption rates
The internet is not far from being a truly ubiquitous resource in the Middle East, rapidly becoming crucial in business and embedded in our everyday lives, within a relatively short space of time.
Bandwidth is important to ensure a great user experience, but on the other hand, developers still need to cater for users with slower internet speeds. "The Mena region has among the fastest Internet growth in terms of users in the world, so adoption has not really slowed," says Ahmed Nassef, Vice President, Managing Director, Yahoo! Middle East.
"Of course, cost of access is a factor in some areas such as Levant and North Africa, but generally access costs will only keep coming down. Deeper challenges such as illiteracy create a bigger obstacle, and a focus on education needs to be a high priority for the region."
New opportunities as Mena countries resolve bandwidth issues
In a very short period of time, we've seen widespread internet connectivity become more and more an ingrained part of daily life. No matter where you go, it's almost guaranteed you'll be able to get online somehow, whether through a Wi-Fi hotspot or the data plan on your smartphone.
As smartphones and other mobile devices continually get better, faster, cheaper and easier to use, they organise everything from social messaging, storing and sending photos, cataloguing your music, doing your banking, and even ordering your dinner, online.
"This is a major upgrade in lifestyle convenience, and one that will become increasingly more familiar to people in the Mena region with the upgrade of bandwidth availability," says Nassef.
Steven Bond, Reporter
