DOHA: With 96.4 percent penetration, Qatar has the second highest percentage of household broadband of any developing country, after South Korea. The Gulf state is also ranked third among developing countries for the percentage of individuals using the Internet, according to the UN Broadband Commission.
Several Middle East and North African countries are in the top 20 for the number of people online, including Bahrain (11th), the UAE (13th) and Qatar (17th).
Other nations, such as Jordan (87), Tunisia (90th) and Iraq (157th) still have a significant way to go, with less than 50 percent of the population online.
According to the 2014 edition of the State of Broadband report, over 50 percent of the global population will have Internet access within three years, with mobile broadband over smartphones and tablets now the fastest growing technology in human history,
Released yesterday in New York at the 10th meeting of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, the report reveals that more than 40 percent of the world’s people are already online, with the number of Internet users expected to grow from 2.3 billion in 2013 to 2.9 billion by the end of this year.
Over 2.3 billion people will access mobile broadband by the end of 2014, climbing steeply to a predicted 7.6 billion within the next five years. There are now over three times as many mobile broadband connections as there are conventional fixed broadband subscriptions. The popularity of broadband-enabled social media applications continues to soar, with 1.9 billion people now active on social networks.
Produced annually by the Broadband Commission, The State of Broadband is a unique global snapshot of broadband network access and affordability, with country-by country data measuring broadband access against key advocacy targets set by the 54 members of the Broadband Commission.
South Korea continues to have the world’s highest household broadband penetration at over 98 percent, up from 97 percent last year. Monaco now surpasses last year’s champion, Switzerland, as the world leader in fixed broadband penetration, at over 44 percent of the population. There are now four economies (Monaco, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands) where penetration exceeds 40 percent, up from just one (Switzerland) in 2013.
The US ranks 19th globally in terms of number of people online, ahead of other OECD countries like Germany (20th) and Australia (21st), but behind the United Kingdom (12th), Japan (15th) and Canada (16th).
In 77 countries now, over 50 percent of the population is online, up from 70 in 2013. The top 10 countries for Internet use are all located in Europe, with Iceland ranked first in the world with 96.5 percent of people online. The lowest levels of Internet access are mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, with Internet available to less than two percent of the population.
THE PENINSULA
