Internet user base set to surpass 2 billion people in 2010

by Steven Mostyn - Oct 21 2010, 09:56

There's no stopping the march of technology. And that's a statement that certainly rings true with the Internet, which is growing so quickly that it's already reaching a third of the global population.

That's the finding of a new United Nations (U.N.) report that shows the Internet user base has doubled in the last five years and is on track to move beyond two billion people before the dawn of 2011.

The report, which was compiled by the International Telecommunication Union and published on World Statistics Day, reveals that 71 percent of people living in developed nations are now using the Internet, while 65 percent of online users log-on and surf from home.

Although the Net is growing exponentially around the world, the report also found that the online usage divide between industrialised and developing nations is shrinking – albeit slowly. Specifically, while 226 million new users are thought to have found the Internet during 2010, the U.N. estimates that around 162 million of them live in developing nations.

That being said, in terms of the Internet's increasing spread across developing nations, a mere 21 percent of people living in poorer countries are presently able to use the Internet, and only 13.5 percent have home access. The majority of online usage in developing nations is presently centred around schools, the workplace and public locations.

Mobile phones and mobile networks remain the world's favoured and most easily accessed means of gaining online connectivity, with 90 percent of the global population able to tap into a nearby wireless network, while mobile subscriptions have increased from 72 million in 2005 to 940 million in 2010.

Supporting the momentum of mobile phone handsets, the report outlines that 6.1 trillion text messages were exchanged in 2010, which is around three times the amount sent and received in 2007.

Around the Web