What the technology is playing role to make world more global village as a report revealed that 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 report said.
As the past in the world’s developed countries about 80 per cent of the population use the internet, however only about 40 per cent in developing countries and less than 15 per cent in less-developed countries are online, according to a report by the UN’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, poorer and lives in rural areas, said the union, a specialized agency for information and communication technologies.
Globally, 47 per cent of the world’s population is online, still far short of a UN target of 60 per cent 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.
Telecoms and internet companies are expanding as more affordable smartphones encourage consumers 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 have reached the level enjoyed by developed countries in 1998, suggesting that the LDCs are lagging nearly 20 years behind the developed countries,” the report said.
