57 Percent of Global Population Remains Unconnected, UN Broadband Commission Report Finds
More than 80 percent of households in developed countries have Internet access, while nearly 35 percent of households in developing countries are connected, a United Nations Broadband Commission global broadband report found. It said that 57 percent of the world's…
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population can't access the Internet, although the total number of connected individuals rose from 2.9 billion in 2014 to 3.2 billion this year. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region account for half of all active mobile broadband subscriptions, the Broadband Commission said, and Iceland leads all countries with the highest percentage of individuals using the Internet. The growth of mobile broadband usage in the Asia-Pacific region is "squeezing" other world regions in terms of global mobile broadband market share, the commission said. It said that from the end of 2014 until now, Europe and the Americas "saw declining proportional shares of mobile broadband subscriptions." The commission referred to 2014 as the likely tipping point at which growth in 3G slowed and 4G services accelerated. While Internet penetration is approaching saturation in the developed world, the report said, the U.N. commission's target of 60 percent of the global population online is unlikely to be achieved before 2021.