3 billion people now on the internet — and those in Denmark are most connected
There are now 3 billion people on the internet — and
those in Denmark are best at it
By the end of 2014, there’ll be as many phone
subscriptions as people, report finds
By Andrew Griffin
Tuesday 25 November 2014
Denmark is the most connected place on the internet, as
the number of people getting online is quickly increasing, a UN report has
said.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the
branch of the UN that is tasked with looking at computer and telecommunications
use, has compiled its annual report looking at the world’s most connected
countries as well as the fast spread of internet use across the world.
Denmark came first in the ITU’s ICT Development Index, an
annual study of countries’ level of ICT access, use and skills. South Korea
came second, with most of the rest made up of European and high-income
countries.
The ITU praised other countries including the UAE, Fiji,
Cape Verde and Thailand for improving their ranking most over the last year.
By the end of 2014, there will be 7 billion mobile phone
subscriptions — as many subscriptions as people in the world.
But while mobile internet has been key in getting many
people in rural and developing countries online, much of that number is
accounted for by people with multiple subscriptions and often isn’t passed on
to people in the very worst-connected areas, the report says. In developing
countries there is a sharp divide between rural and urban areas, with
connectedness sometimes varying by 35%.
But internet has improved in poorer countries, with
developing nations accounting for about 30% of international bandwidth, up from
9% ten years ago.
Internet use is up 6.6% globally in 2014, with most of
that growth coming from the developing world. The number of interent users in
those countries has doubled over the last five years, meaning that two-thirds
of people who are online live there.
Of the 4.3 billion people without the internet, 90% live
in developing countries. About 2.5 billion people live in the world’s 42 least
connected countries, which mostly have large and rural populations.
The increasing number of people on the internet have
brought with them yet more content. That is mostly provided by the biggest
websites — more than 100 hours of video is added to YouTube every minute, for
instance. Much of that comes from the richest countries, which signed up 80% of
new domains in 2013.
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