53% of World Population Still Does Not Use the Internet

source: ITU

Global Internet access in one picture. Important: note that the figures represent mobile access to voice communications and the Internet.

Fixed access adds some additional number of connections, but essentially is irrelevant to the broad trend--either for voice communications or Internet.

Fixed-network Internet access adoption remains at below one percent in Africa and other less developed countries. Though China is driving fixed broadband in Asia, fixed-broadband penetration is just about 10 percent in 2016, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

But mobile coverage is not ubiquitous, and not all mobile networks support fast or relatively fast Internet access. In 2016, 66 percent of the population lives within an area covered by a mobile broadband network.

Seven billion people (95 percent of the global population) live in an area that is covered by a cellular network.

Mobile-broadband networks (3G or above) reach 84 percent of the global population but only 67 percent of the rural population.

LTE networks have spread quickly over the last three years and reach almost four billion people today (53 percent of the global population).

Still, 3.9 billion people, representing 53 percent of the world’s population is not using the Internet.

That is why a Spectrum Futures exists. Here is the Spectrum Futures schedule.