
Telecommunication in Libya
Compared to the European Union, Libya is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +218, there were a total of 4.50 million connections in 2020. Among them were 2.92 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.43 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 17,926 webhosts, Libya is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 5,093 million of these, or about 28 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
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Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 10.05 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Libya ranked 147th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 6.0 Mbit/second (137th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 5th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Libya comes 136th with a download speed of 8.4 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 5 Mbit was enough for 136th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in April 2022 from 181 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in Libya from 1990 - 2019
Broadband internet in Libya 2008 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | Libya Total | Libya percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 332,000.00 | 4.83 % | 163.72 m | 36.59 % |
Landlines | 1.58 m | 22.94 % | 160.15 m | 35.79 % |
Mobile cellulars | 2.92 m | 42.52 % | 540.56 m | 120.80 % |