2.7 billion people will have Internet access by year end: UN

The latest edition of UN’s Millenium Development Goals report is out and it estimates that by the end of this year, 2.7 billion people (39 percent of the world’s population) would be using the Internet. 

39% of world population expected to be online by end of 2013 (Image credit: Getty Images)

31 percent of the population in the developing countries has access to the Internet, as opposed to a whopping 77 percent of Internet users in the developed world. UN’s MDG report has found the lowest Internet penetration levels in Sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 20 percent of the population is online.

More men have access to the Internet globally than women. 37 percent of women have access to the Internet in the world, compared to 41 percent of men. In the developing countries only 29 percent of women were found using the Internet, compared to 33 percent of the male population.

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The report, on a yearly basis, focusses on several key areas of development like education, women’s rights, disease control, access to technology, to name a few.  Moving further, the MDG report expects the number of mobile-cellular subscriptions to reach 6.8 billion by the end of this year. By then, global penetration levels would have reached 96 percent globally and 89 percent in developing the countries.

Broadband penetration too forms a part of this report. This UN report estimates that by the end of 2013, subscriptions for fixed broadband will reach roughly 700 million, while mobile broadband will get 2.1 million subscriptions. The organisation believes that the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications should be made available to the masses.