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Broadband stats 2014

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 14 Jul 2014
Africa leads the way in mobile broadband growth, with 20% of the continent's population estimated to be connected via mobile this year - up from 2% in 2010.
Africa leads the way in mobile broadband growth, with 20% of the continent's population estimated to be connected via mobile this year - up from 2% in 2010.

With SA in the midst of one of the toughest economic battles in recent history, the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS) has verbally committed to focusing on broadband development.

DTPS minister Siyabonga Cwele said the department agreed with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - the United Nations' specialised ICT agency - with regard to its focus on the importance of broadband as an economic enabler.

In order to fulfil its mission of "bringing ICTs into the hands of ordinary people, wherever they live", the ITU believes it is important to measure the information society, track progress and identify gaps.

Here are some of the union's ICT facts and figures for 2014:

1. Africa leads in mobile broadband growth.
2. Mobile broadband penetration in Africa will reach 20% this year - up from 2% in 2010.
3. By the end of 2014, 55% of all mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to be in the developing world - compared to only 20% in 2008.
4. Globally, mobile broadband penetration will reach 32% by the end of the year - almost double the penetration rate in 2011, and four times as high as 2009.
5. In developed countries, mobile broadband penetration will reach 84%, which is four times as high as the percentage in developing countries (21%).
6. By the end of 2014, there will be 2.3 billion mobile broadband subscriptions globally - five times as many as there were six years ago.
7. Fixed broadband growth, on the other hand, is waning in developing countries.
8. Forty-four percent of all fixed broadband subscriptions are in the Asia-Pacific region - compared to only 0.5% in Africa.
9. Fixed broadband rates are expected to drop from 18% in 2011 to 6% this year.
10. In developed countries, fixed broadband penetration will grow at around 3.5% in 2014 - compared with 4.8% in 2011.
11. Despite double-digit growth in fixed broadband over the past four years, penetration in Africa remains low, at 0.4% by the end of 2014.
12. Almost three billion people - 40% of the world's population - are using the Internet.
13. Close to one out of three people in developing countries are online.
14. In developing countries, the number of Internet users will have doubled in five years, from 974 million in 2009 to 1.9 billion this year.
15. Internet user penetration has reached 40% globally, 78% in developed countries and 32% in developing countries.
16. 2014 growth rates in developed countries remain relatively low (3.3%) - compared with 8.7% in developing countries.
17. In Africa, almost 20% of the population will be online by the end of the year - up from 10% in 2010.
18. In the Americas, close to two out of every three people will be using the Internet by the end of 2014 - the second highest penetration rate after Europe.
19. Europe's Internet penetration will reach 75% ? three out of every four people - by the end of 2014.
20. While 44% of the world's households will have Internet access by the end of 2014, only one out of 10 households in Africa is connected.

On the local front, World Wide Worx predicts there will be 20.5 million Internet users in SA by 2020. While this is a considerable increase from the 15.6 million estimated to be online this year, government's National Development Plan aims to have a fully connected nation by 2020.

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