The report, published today just before the upcoming Sustainable Development Summit in New York and the parallel meeting of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development on September 26, reveals that 57% of the world's population remains offline and unable to take advantage of the enormous economic and social benefits offered by the internet.
Access to information and communication technologies, and broadband internet in particular, has the potential to significantly accelerate development, and the importance of ICT connectivity is specifically recognized in the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. According to the report, now that the 17 goals are firmly enshrined on the global agenda, governments and the private sector have a strong interest in finding ways to connect people.
The Broadband Commission comprises more than 50 leaders from the public and private sectors who are committed to actively helping countries, United Nations experts, and NGO teams to fully harness the vast potential of ICTs to drive new strategies related to sustainable development goals in key sectors such as education, health care, and environmental management.
“The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals remind us that we must measure global development by the standards of those left behind,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General, who is also Co-Vice-Chair of the Commission with Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO. “The market has done its job by connecting the world’s richest countries, where the commercial interest in deploying networks can be easily justified. The most important thing now is to find ways to connect the 4 billion people who still cannot benefit from internet connectivity, and that will be the main focus of the Broadband Commission.”.
The State of Broadband report, produced annually by the Broadband Commission, is a unique global snapshot of broadband access and affordability, with country-by-country data on broadband access compared to the essential targets set by the Commission in 2011.
The report's new figures confirm that 3.2 billion people are now connected to the internet, up from 2.9 billion last year, representing 43% of the world's population. However, while internet access is nearly saturated in developed countries, only 35% of the population in developing countries has access. The situation in the 48 Least Developed Countries designated by the United Nations is particularly critical, as more than 90% of their inhabitants lack any internet connectivity.
This year's figures show that the top 10 countries in household internet penetration are all in Asia or the Middle East. South Korea continues to have the highest household broadband penetration rate in the world, with 98.5% of households connected, while Qatar (98%) and Saudi Arabia (94%) rank second and third, respectively.
Iceland has the highest percentage of people using the Internet (98.2%), just ahead of close neighbors Norway (96.3%) and Denmark (96%).
Monaco remains very slightly ahead of Switzerland as the world leader in fixed broadband penetration, with over 46.8% of the population, compared to Switzerland's 46%. There are now six economies (Monaco, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, and France) where broadband penetration exceeds 40%, whereas in 2013 there was only one (Switzerland).
The Asia-Pacific region now accounts for half of all mobile broadband subscriptions, with Macau (China) easily taking first place with 322 active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, or just over three subscriptions per inhabitant, followed by Singapore (156 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants) and Kuwait (140 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants).
Currently, there are 79 countries where 50% of the population is online, compared to 77 in 2014. The top 10 countries in terms of internet user proportion are all European. The lowest levels of internet access are found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, where the internet is accessible to less than 2% of the population in Guinea (1.7%), Somalia (1.6%), Burundi (1.4%), Timor-Leste (1.1%), and Eritrea (1.0%).
“The 2030 Agenda recognizes the potential of new technologies to accelerate human progress, bridge the digital divide, and develop knowledge societies, and we must do everything possible to help countries achieve these goals, especially developing countries,” said Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO. “To this end, governments and all stakeholders must redouble their efforts to ensure access, utilization, and affordability, thereby increasing the capacity of everyone, men and women, to take full advantage of these new opportunities.”
According to the report, thanks to the Commission's information work on the importance of broadband, the number of countries with a National Broadband Plan increased from 102 in 2010, when the Commission began its work, to 148 today.
The State of Broadband 2015 report is the fourth edition of the Commission's report on broadband connectivity. This annual publication is the only report that contains a country-by-country ranking of access and affordability in more than 160 economies.
