Mobile-broadband networks covered 84 per cent of the world's population in 2016, yet with 47.1 per cent Internet user penetration, the number of Internet users remains well below the number of people with network access, a United Nations agency report said.

While infrastructure deployment is crucial, high prices and other barriers remain important challenges to getting more people to enter the digital world, according to the report by the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Most people have access to Internet services but many do not actually use them. The spread of 3G and 4G networks across the world make the Internet increasingly available to more and more people, it said.

ITU's flagship annual Measuring the Information Society Report reports that the world is getting more and more connected and reveals that there are still huge investment opportunities for the private sector to connect the unconnected.

"To bring more people online, it is important to focus on reducing overall socio-economic inequalities," said ITU secretary-general Houlin Zhao.

"Education and income levels are strong determinants of whether or not people use the Internet. ICTs will be essential in meeting each and every one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and this report plays an important role in the SDG process. Without measurement and reporting, we cannot track the progress being made and identify areas that require action, and this is why ITU gathers data and publishes this important report every year."

The Republic of Korea tops the ICT Development Index (IDI) rankings in 2016 for the second consecutive year. The top 10 countries of the IDI 2016 also include two other economies in the Asia-Pacific region, and seven European countries. Three island countries in the Caribbean – St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, and Grenada – featured among the most dynamic countries with strong improvements in their IDI value and rank

"This year's results show that nearly all of the 175 countries covered by the index improved their IDI values between 2015 and 2016," said Brahima Sanou, Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, which produces the report each year.

"During the same period, stronger improvements have been made on ICT use than access, mainly as a result of strong growth in mobile-broadband uptake globally. This has allowed an increasing number of people, in particular from the developing world, to join the information society and benefit from the many services and applications provided through the Internet."

Measuring mobile adoption

Mobile phone adoption has largely been monitored based on mobile-cellular subscription data since these are widely available and regularly collected and disseminated by regulators and operators. At the end of 2016, there are almost as many mobile-cellular subscriptions as people on earth and 95 per cent of the global population lives in an area that is covered by a mobile-cellular signal.

However, since many people have multiple subscriptions or devices, other metrics need to be produced to accurately assess mobile uptake, such as the number of mobile phone users or mobile phone owners.

Internet potential underused

The full potential of the Internet remains untapped. Internet users with higher levels of education use more advanced services, such as e-commerce and online financial and government services to a higher degree than Internet users with lower levels of education and income levels, who predominantly use the Internet for communication and entertainment purposes. This suggests that many people are yet to benefit fully from the opportunities brought by the Internet.

Access to the Internet is not enough; policy-makers must address broader socio-economic inequalities and help people acquire the necessary skills to take full advantage of the Internet. This is in line with a more integrated development approach, like that adopted in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which highlights that development challenges are linked and cannot be achieved in isolation.

Many people still do not own or use a mobile phone. Household data from developing countries show that a significant part of the population does not use mobile-cellular services at all. In developing economies where recent household data is available, close to 20 per cent of the population, on average, are still not using a mobile phone.

Most people who do not own or use a mobile phone are among the youngest (5-14 years old) and those more than 74 years old segments of the population. Usage and ownership penetration rates amongst these age groups are much lower than amongst the rest of the population. Among the 15-74 age group, 85 per cent or more of the population owns or uses a mobile phone in the countries where data are available. – TradeArabia News Service