ITU: Global Internet Potential Largely Untapped, Over 2.9bn People Still Unconnected to Internet

Emma Okonji

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialised agency for Information and Communication Technologies, has raised the concern over the untapped global internet potential, insisting that over one third of the global population, which is about 2.9 billion people do not have access to internet, and still largely offline.

ITU raised the concern in its latest Global Connectivity Report 2022, explaining that the immense potential of the internet for social and economic good remains largely untapped despite 30 years of steady growth.

The report, which was launched to coincide with the opening of ITU’s World Telecommunication Development Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, argues that while easy, affordable access to fast broadband is near-ubiquitous in most rich-world nations, vast swaths of humanity remain excluded from the immense possibilities offered by the online experience, stunting economic development and deepening global inequalities.

“While the number of internet users surged from just a few million in the early 1990s to almost five billion today, about 2.9 billion people, which is around one third of global population, still remain totally offline, and many hundreds of millions more struggle with expensive, poor-quality access that does little to materially improve their lives,” the report said.

The report advocates for putting ‘universal and meaningful connectivity’ – defined as the possibility of a safe, satisfying, enriching, productive, and affordable online experience for everyone – at the centre of global development.

It also evaluates how close the world is to achieving that universal and meaningful connectivity, using the connectivity targets for 2030 recently released by ITU and the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology.

The cost of broadband subscriptions and digital devices remains a major barrier to connectivity, the report confirms, adding that while internet access has become progressively cheaper in richer countries, getting online is still prohibitively expensive in many in low- and lower-middle-income economies.

The report said although the cost of broadband, especially mobile broadband, fell significantly over the past decade, the majority of low- and middle-income economies still fall short of the global affordability target of two per cent or less of gross national income per capita set by the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.

Analysing the report, ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao, said: “Equitable access to digital technologies isn’t just a moral responsibility, it’s essential for global prosperity and sustainability. We need to create the right conditions, including promoting environments conducive to investment, to break cycles of exclusion and bring digital transformation to all.”

While the COVID-related surge in demand for internet access brought some 800 million additional people online, it also dramatically increased the cost of digital exclusion, with those unable to connect abruptly shut out of employment, schooling, access to health advice, financial services, and much more, Zhao said.

The Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who produced the report, said: “Universal, meaningful connectivity has become the global imperative for our decade. It’s no longer just about linking people – the catalytic role of connectivity will also be absolutely critical to our success in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

The Missing Link’ report, published in 1984 by the Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development set up by ITU, identified a clear correlation between access to telecommunications and socio-economic development and urged all countries to make connectivity a priority.

Nearly 40 years on, that ‘missing link’ still persists, but has morphed to multiple digital divides such as: The Income Divide; The Urban-Rural Divide; The Gender Divide; The Generation Divide and The Education Divide.

The report noted that the biggest challenges in connecting the unconnected were no longer related to network coverage, but rather to uptake and use.

“With just five per cent of the global population still physically out of reach of a mobile broadband signal, the ‘coverage gap’ is now dwarfed by the ‘usage gap’, some 32 per cent of people who are within range of a mobile broadband network and could theoretically connect still remain offline, due to prohibitive costs, lack of access to a device, or lack of awareness, skills, or ability to find useful content,” the report added.