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Internet users to surpass 2 Billion this year
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 17:59 IST |
1 Comments
Banaglore: Internet users globally has doubled over the pas five years and it will exceed two billion this year, approaching a third of the world population, according to a United Nations agency.
"162 million of the 226 million new Internet users in 2010 will be from developing countries, where Internet users grow at a higher rate," International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said in a report. "By the end of 2010, 71 percent of the population in developed countries will be online compared to 21 percent of the population on developing countries," it added. But developing countries need to build up high-speed connections.
"Broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational technology," said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure. "It can generate jobs, drive growth and productivity and underpin long-term economic competitiveness."
Access varies widely by region, with 65 percent of people online in Europe, ahead of 55 percent in the Americas, compared with only 9.6 percent of the population in Africa and 21.9 percent in Asia/Pacific, the ITU said.
Access to the Internet in schools, at work and in public places is critical for developing countries, where only 13.5 percent of people have the Internet at home, against 65 percent in developed countries, it said.
A study last week by another UN agency showed that mobile phones were a far more important communications technology for people in the poorest developing countries than the Internet.
