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 7.60 m connections in 2019. Among them were 6.02 m million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.89 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.

In the expansion of broadband Internet connections, Libya is back. Around 22% of all residents have access to the Internet. Approximately 5% have their own fast Internet connection, which is at least faster than the previous ISDN (more than 2048 kbit/s).

With about 17,926 webhosts, Libya is below the world's average by population.

Back to overview: Libya

Development of telephone and internet connections

With an average download speed of 15.01 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Libya ranked 140th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 9.7 Mbit/second (144th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 18th place.
In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Libya comes 124th with a download speed of 16.38 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 7 Mbit was enough for 130th place.

The "Speedtest Global Index" published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in Februar 2021 from 175 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 - 2019

Landlines 1990 - 2019

Mobile phones 1990 - 2019

Spreading in 2019	Libya Total	Libya percent	EU Total	EU percent
Internet users	1.47 m	21.76 %	382.31 m	85.43 %
Broadband users	318,000.00	4.69 %	158.30 m	35.37 %
Landlines	1.58 m	23.25 %	165.48 m	36.98 %
Mobile cellulars	6.02 m	88.82 %	542.60 m	121.25 %