About 300 million people gained Internet access
in the past year. But some 57 percent of the world's population -- more
than 4 billion people -- still do not use the Internet regularly or
actively, according to a UN Broadband Commission report released this
week. Women fared worse than men in poorer countries, with 25 percent
fewer having Internet access.
Efforts to increase Internet access worldwide are
falling short of targeted goals, according to a United Nations Broadband
Commission
report released earlier this week.
More than half the world's population is still offline, according to
the report, and growth in the number of people with access to the
Internet is slowing.
The digital divide has become a chasm.
Internet access in rich economies is reaching saturation levels,
while about 90 percent of the people in the 48 poorest countries have
none, the report notes. It appears that a backward trend in Internet
access is taking shape. This year's projected growth rate of 8.1 percent
represents a drop from 8.6 percent last year, and a downward trajectory
from the double digit growth seen until 2012.
"The Internet in many countries is still seen as a privilege and not a
basic human right," said Clair Jones, technology and broadband expert
at
LocalInternetService.com.
"Infrastructure is limited and needs to be expanded, but the real
barrier to entry is cost. For Internet to truly be available across the
globe we, as a planet, would have to decide that digital equality is
important enough to make Internet a public utility. We would need to
significantly lower costs or make the Internet free for undeveloped
countries," she told TechNewsWorld.
Costly Challenges
Broadband access is critical for any country's economy, whether it's a new or an old economy, observed Anurag Lal, CEO of
Infinite Convergence Solutions.
It has a direct link to the competitiveness of a country's workforce, he said.
"The Obama administration, as well as previous U.S. administrations,
understood the importance of developing broadband. They believed it was a
utility that has to be encouraged," Lal told TechNewsWorld.
One approach to reversing the approaching flatline of broadband
access could be a mobile and satellite broadband push. That could allow
governments to bring service to rural areas that currently do not have
access to infrastructure and likely will not in the near future, noted
LocalInternetService.com's Jones.
"I would expect that we could bring broadband connection to most parts of the world by 2030," she said.
Access Findings
Nearly 3.2 billion people -- about 43.4 percent of the world's
population -- will have some form of regular access to the Internet by
this year's end. That figure is up from 2.9 billion last year, according
to the UN report.
The commission's goal is to see 60 percent of the world's population
wired to the Internet by 2020, but that end-game is a big growth factor
away, the report warns. Two key factors contributing to the likelihood
of a missed target are the cost of extending infrastructure to rural and
remote customers, and a sharp slowdown in the growth of mobile cellular
subscriptions globally.
"The world is a big place, and the business model has to make sense.
Most [people in] third-world countries do not have the income to support
an Internet account," said Michael Bremmer, CEO of
TelecomQuotes.com.
"When you are worried about food, Facebook really is not that important," he told TechNewsWorld.
For example, a mobile data plan in Brazil costs about 10 percent of
average wages, he said, and in Africa a mobile data plan costs about
one-third of average wages.
Key Stats
About 300 million people gained Internet access in the past year. But
some 57 percent of the world's population -- more than 4 billion people
-- still do not use the Internet regularly or actively, according to the
UN report. Women fared worse than men in poorer countries, with 25
percent fewer having Internet access.
Language barriers in some regions made it difficult for people to use
the Internet even in areas where the technology was present. The
world's residents speak about 7,100 languages, but just 5 percent of
them are represented online, the report notes.
"Even if we expand infrastructure and lower costs to make the
Internet affordable for all, there is still the difficulty of
integrating translation of the world's languages so that the information
is accessible for all," Jones said.
Bleak Picture
The top 10 countries for household Internet penetration are in Asia or
the Middle East, according to the UN Commission's report. For example,
the Republic of Korea continues to have the world's highest household
broadband penetration, with 98.5 percent of homes connected. Close
follow ups are Qatar with 98 percent and Saudi Arabia with 94 percent.
In contrast, the lowest levels of Internet access are mostly found in
Sub-Saharan Africa. The Internet is available to less than 2 percent of
the populations in Guinea, Somalia, Burundi and Eritrea. The only
solution in these regions is to tackle the cost of physically extending
broadband infrastructure with the latest advances in satellite
technology, the report suggests.
Making It Work
The most encouraging possibilities for spreading Internet access across
the globe lie with more affordable technologies. The same issues that
are related to rural broadband deployments in the United States apply in
other parts of the world, said Frank DeMasi, vice president of
information technology at Resolute Partners.
"Wireless technology advances if it is ground-based and satellite if
it is sky-based. It is about covering the most area with the least
amount of infrastructure. This was done easily when TV rolled out, so
the same needs to happen with Internet," he told TechNewsWorld.
Spectrum is a key component of the required infrastructure.
Governments have put some initiatives in place, noted Infinite
Convergence Solutions' Lal, but they have to make more unlicensed
spectrum available.
"Wireless is growing around the world. It makes broadband more
available. In most cases, support for WiFi is the end point of a
broadband initiative," he said.
Airborne Solutions
Google and Facebook already are trying to implement air-worthy Internet
solutions. Their approaches may give governments of countries with
hard-access terrains a less costly way to create a broadband
infrastructure.
"Google and Facebook are trying to minimize the infrastructure
problem," said Lal. "They are using slightly different approaches:
Google is using balloons; Facebook is using flying drones. Those are the
only ways to wire parts of the world at a minimum cost."
Both companies have met with some success in leapfrogging broadband
challenges to bring the Internet to the populations where nobody else
has done it, he observed.
"Both are for-profit companies, so they want to get people to the Internet to reach their services," Lal pointed out.
Is a Connected World Possible?
How connected the Earth can become depends on one's definition of
"connected." If it means connecting every corner of the globe, that
probably will never happen, said TelecomQuotes.com' Bremmer.
Still, the Obama administration just classified the Internet as a
"utility," he pointed out, which likely will force more buildouts.
Even after the broadband infrastructure is expanded, efforts will
need to focus on making the service affordable and available to both men
and women everywhere, said LocalInternetService.com's Jones.
When will the world truly be connected? "That is a good question,"
said Resolute Partners' DeMasi. "If we are talking everyone everywhere, I
do not see it happening in the next 30 years."
