Date:02/11/11

The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures

One third of the world’s population is online

The world is home to 7 billion people, one third of which are using the Internet. 45% of the world’s Internet users are below the age of 25.

Over the last five years, developing countries have increased their share of the world’s total number of Internet users from 44% in 2006, to 62% in 2011. Today, Internet users in China represent almost 25% of the world’s total Internet users and 37% of the developing countries’ Internet users.

Younger people tend to be more online than older people, in both developed and developing countries. In developing countries, 30% of those under the age of 25 use the Internet, compared to 23% of those 25 years and older. At the same time, 70% of the under 25-yearolds.

A total of 1.9 billion — are not online yet: a huge potential if developing countries can connect schools and increase school enrolment rates. With 5.9 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions, global penetration reaches 87%, and 79% in the developing world

. Mobile-broadband subscriptions have grown 45% annually over the last four years and today there are twice as many mobile-broadband as fixedbroadband subscriptions.

Of 1.8 billion households worldwide, one third have Internet access, compared to only one fifth five years ago. In developing countries, 25% of homes have a computer and 20% have Internet access, compared to 20% and 13%, respectively, 3 years ago.

Growth in bandwidth

International Internet bandwidth, a key factor for providing high-speed Internet access to a growing number of Internet users has grown exponentially over the last five years, from 11’000 Gbit/s in 2006, to close to 80’000 Gbit/s in 2011.

Disparities between regions in terms of available Internet bandwidth per Internet user remain, with on average almost 90’000 bit/s of bandwidth per user in Europe, compared with 2’000 bit/s per user in Africa. A total of 159 economies worldwide have launched 3G services commercially and the number of active mobile-broadband subscriptions has increased to almost 1.2 billion.

While people in developed countries usually use mobile-broadband networks in addition to a fixedbroadband connection, mobile-broadband is often the only access method available to people in developing countries.

The percentage of the population covered by a 2G mobile-cellular network is twice as high as the population covered by a 3G network. 3G population coverage reached 45% in 2011. Europe leads in broadband connectivity, with fixed- and mobile-broadband penetration reaching 26% and 54%, respectively.

A number of developing countries have been able to leverage mobile-broadband technologies to overcome infrastructure barriers and provide high-speed Internet services to previously unconnected areas. In Africa, mobile-broadband penetration has reached 4%, compared with less than 1% for fixed-broadband penetration.

The world’s top broadband economies are from Europe and Asia and the Pacific. In the Republic of Korea mobile-broadband penetration exceeds 90%.

While almost all fixed-broadband connections in the Republic of Korea provide speeds equal to, or above 10 Mbit/s, broadband users in Ghana, Mongolia, Oman and Venezuela are limited to broadband speeds below 2 Mbit/s.

An Internet connection with a speed of 256 kbit/s limits the types of applications and services that Internet users can enjoy. Service providers for data-intensive services, such as Video-on-Demand, recommend a minimum speed of 2 Mbit/s.

Advertised and real speeds can differ substantially. In some countries, regulatory authorities monitor the speed and quality of broadband services and oblige operators to provide accurate quality-of-service information to end users.

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