Many around the world are suffering to access the Internet, while the Corona epidemic has demonstrated the importance of the network in ensuring the continuity of work and study, during crises.
New data published by the International Telecommunication Union on Tuesday revealed that about 4.9 billion people surfed the Internet this year, an increase of 800 million people over the number of users before the pandemic.
The measures to contain the epidemic have led to the closure of countless companies and schools all over the world, sometimes for consecutive months, prompting employees, schoolchildren and university students to use the Internet to continue working and studying, if they have access to the network.
However, the availability of this connectivity is still unequal, with nearly all those who do not have it living in developing countries, or 96 percent.
Among those connected to the Internet, there are hundreds of millions who can only do so by using means they share with others or have only low speed, which greatly limits their use of the capabilities of the Internet.
The Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, Houlin Zhao, considered that “a great effort is still required.”
The unusually large increase in the number of users leads to the belief that the pandemic has encouraged people to use the Internet.
Since 2019, the network has used an additional 782 million people, an increase of 17 percent, and the increase was 10 percent in the first year of the epidemic, the strongest annual increase “in a decade”, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
The Federation noted that the reason for the lack of Internet access is not necessarily due to the lack of infrastructure, noting that 95 percent of the world’s population can theoretically access the third and fourth generation mobile phone network.
He stressed that the cost of internet connection should not exceed 2% of the annual income of an individual in a developing country, in order for it to be accessible to the public.
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