Internet Resilience
The Internet plays a critical role in society today and the COVID-19 pandemic further underlined the importance of reliable Internet connectivity for everyone. Unfortunately, not all countries have reliable Internet infrastructure. Low-income countries often have under-provisioned networks and lack both robust cable infrastructure and redundant interconnection systems. In these countries or regions, the likelihood of Internet outages occurring is much higher than elsewhere.
A resilient Internet connection is one that maintains an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation. In this Pulse focus area we track resiliency metrics using the Internet Resilience Index to help support the development of policies and infrastructure to improve Internet resilience at the local, regional and global level.
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Download the Measuring Internet Resilience in Africa project overview.
Our overall measure of Internet resilience is based on the following pillars:
Infrastructure
The existence and availability of physical infrastructure that provides Internet connectivity.
Performance
The ability of the network to provide end-users with seamless and reliable access to Internet services.
Security
The ability of the network to resist intentional or unintentional disruptions through the adoption of security technologies and best practices.
Market Readiness
The ability of the market to self-regulate and provide affordable prices to end-users by maintaining a diverse and competitive market.
About the Internet Resilience Index
Measuring Internet resilience is not an easy task as there are several building blocks that underpin the Internet’s complex infrastructure. Additionally, the Internet landscape varies considerably around the world. To be able to objectively compare countries there needs to be a balanced set of metrics that track and record the different components that contribute to the overall resiliency of the Internet.
To achieve this, the Internet Society has developed the Internet Resilience Index (IRI). This document outlines the approach used to build the Index, the selection of indicators and the underlying data sources, the weighting scheme, and the aggregation method used.
The Internet Resilience Index is built using best practices according to the EU-JRC and the OECD Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators and uses the same methodology as currently existing indices such as the GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index, the Facebook/EIU Inclusive Internet Index and the Web Foundation Web Index.
API Access
If you would like access to the data underpinning the Internet Resilience Index via our API, please request access by emailing pulse@isoc.org.