Sierra Leone

Highlights

  1. Internet Society gives Sierra Leone an overall Internet resilience score of 36%, which means it has medium capacity to withstand unexpected faults or challenges to normal operation.
  2. As of 2024, the population of Sierra Leone was 8,642,022. The United Nations defines it as a least developed country.
  3. Sierra Leone received a security preparedness score of 56.63 on the 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index. Its e-government system readiness score is 46.61.
  4. Out of the 1000 most-visited websites, 1% can be reached on a local server or cache in Sierra Leone. This falls below Internet Society's target of 50%.
  5. Approximately 30% of the population is an Internet user.
ccTLD
.sl
Flag of Sierra Leone
Region
Africa
Sub-region
Western Africa
Population
8,642,022
UN classification(s)
  • Least Developed Country
  • Low income country

Internet Usage Permanent link

Internet penetration

30%

of the population used the Internet at least once over a 3-month period

39%
Africa average

Average download speed

Based on an average of 300 users

  • 3.01 Mbps
    Broadband
  • 3.01 Mbps
    Mobile

Average Internet cost

15.53%

of average income (GNI) is needed to cover a low-consumption basket, using at least 3G technology.

Network Infrastructure Permanent link

Mobile 4G and 5G coverage

  • 79%
    has access to at least one device with 4G mobile Internet
  • < 1%
    has access to at least one device with 5G mobile Internet

Active networks

The building blocks of the Internet, identified by Autonomous System (AS) numbers.

16
active networks

International connections

Routes to the global Internet

Upstream diversity is

Poor
More than 2 connections to the global Internet improves the ability to recover from unexpected events.

Adoption of IPv6

3%
of users can access online resources using IPv6, the new generation of the Internet Protocol
5%
Africa average

Market Overview Permanent link

Data centers

Number of data centers in operation

2

active data centers

Locally cached content

1%

of the top 1000 websites in Sierra Leone can be accessed through an in-country server or cache

36%
Africa average

Top Internet service providers

Top Internet Service Providers (ISPs) by market share

  • Africell Sierra Leone Limited: 44%
  • Orange (SL) Limited: 35%
  • QCell (SL) Limited: 18%
  • K3 Telecom (SL) Limited: < 1%
  • SpaceX Starlink: < 1%

Market competition

Poor

market competitiveness for Internet customers and end users

Digital public services rating

The UN's measure of a country's e-government ecosystem readiness

23.54

Country-level domain use

2,877

domains registered using .sl, the country code top-level domain (ccTLD).

Security Permanent link

Global Cybersecurity Index

Estimates the ability of a country or economy to prevent and manage cyber incidents

57 / 100

Routing security practices

The use of resource public key infrastructure (RPKI), which connects IP prefixes to the correct autonomous system (AS)

ROA

Route origin authorization uses a cryptographic signature to certify network announcements

  • 77%
    of IPv4 prefixes protected
  • 36%
    of IPv6 prefixes protected

ROV

Route origin validation filters out route announcements

  • 99%
    of networks are using ROV to filter out invalid prefixes and networks

DNSSEC status

  • Inactive

Adoption of DNSSEC

56%

of DNS queries are protected by DNSSEC, across all web traffic

48%
Africa average

Footnotes Permanent link

The geographic boundaries and country names shown do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Internet Society concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities. Regions and Sub-Regions are taken from the UN Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (Series M, No. 49).

Pulse uses the most recent possible data from international sources. For some indicators in Pulse, the source data may be updated more frequently. For more information on how often we update individual data points, see the Indicator page.