PETALING JAYA: Malaysia has surpassed Indonesia and Thailand after climbing 10 spots to be placed 31st among 110 countries in the world in the Digital Quality of Life Index 2021.

       In the third annual edition of the Digital Quality of Life Index (DQL) study conducted by Surfshark, a cybersecurity company, it found that Malaysia’s e-security (21st) and e-government (24th) are among the top 30 in the world.

       But it said the country displays comparatively lower results for e-infrastructure (31st), Internet affordability (69th) and Internet quality (47th).

       Overall, it said Malaysia did similar or slightly better than the global average in all DQL pillars, except Internet affordability.

       It found that the country’s Internet affordability is 60% worse than the worldwide average, ranking only 69th in the world.

       It noted that Malaysians have to work almost five hours to afford the cheapest broadband Internet package and 1.48 minutes for the cheapest 1GB of mobile Internet.

       However, it pointed out that Malaysia has better Internet affordability than Indonesia and the Philippines.

       For Internet quality, the study said Malaysia has room for improvement, noting that the Internet quality is similar to global averages but is surpassed by New Zealand and the Philippines, with the country barely making it to the top 50.

       It also noted that Malaysia ranks 74th globally in the mobile speed index (24.80 Mbps) and 34th in broadband connectivity (90.86 Mbps).