69 percent of the population will be covered by 3G mobile broadband n 2015 against 45 percent in 2011, according to ITU.
ITU estimates that 29 percent of the 3.4 billion people worldwide living in rural areas will be covered by 3G mobile broadband by the end of 2015. Among the four billion people living in urban areas, 89 percent will have access to 3G mobile broadband.
Mobile broadband penetration globally will reach 47 percent in 2015.
Internet penetration has increased almost seven-fold from 6.5 to 43 percent of the global population between 2000 and 2015.
The proportion of households with Internet access at home advanced to 46 percent in 2015 from 18 percent in 2005.
Four billion people in the developing world remain offline. Off the nearly one billion people living in the Least Developing Countries (LDCs), 851 million do not use the Internet.
“These new figures not only show the rapid technological progress made to date, but also help us identify those being left behind in the fast-evolving digital economy, as well as the areas where ICT investment is needed most,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.
There are more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions against 738 million in 2000. Globally, 3.2 billion people are using the Internet, of which two billion live in developing countries.
Fixed-broadband uptake is growing at a slower pace with a seven percent annual increase over the past three years. While the prices of fixed-broadband services dropped sharply between 2008 and 2011 in developing countries, they have been stagnating since then and even increased slightly in LDCs.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com