Half The World To Be Online By Year-End

By the end of 2016, almost half of the world’s population will be using the internet as mobile networks grow and prices fall, but their numbers will remain concentrated in the developed world, a UN agency said on 22 November. In the world’s developed countries about 80% of the population uses the internet. But only about 40% in developing countries and less than 15% in less-developed countries are online, according to a report by the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). In several of Africa’s poorer and more fragile countries, only one person in 10 is on the internet. The offline population is female, elderly, less educated, and poorer and lives in rural areas, said the union, specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Globally, 47% of the world’s population is online, still far short of a UN target of 60% by 2020. Some 3.9 billion people, more than half the world’s population, are not. ITU expects 3.5 billion people to have access by the end of this year. In 2016, people no longer go online, they are online. The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world had brought the internet to more and more people. Telecoms and internet firms are expanding as more affordable smartphones encourage users to browse the internet, causing demand to grow for data-heavy services. However, less developed countries (LDCs) still trail the rest of the world. Internet penetration levels in LDCs today are lagging 20 years behind the developed countries, report said, blaming high cost of services and of extending infrastructure to rural areas and the high price of cellular use.