PMFORUM Breaking News
Breaking News in the Project Management World
Friday, August 27, 2010
UN Agency Reports Phenomenal Mobile Telephone Expansion in Emerging Economies
According
to the United Nations Telecommunications Union (ITU) in July, nearly
two billion additional mobile telephone connections were recorded across
the world between 2006 and last year, the vast majority of them in
developing countries. The latest figurs also show that fixed telephone
lines are in decline.
More
than 1.6 billion of the 1.9 billion new cellular telephones lines were
in poor countries, compared to fewer than 300 million in the developed
world, according to the ITU statistics. There were around 57 million
fewer fixed telephone lines at the end of last year than there were at
the end of 2006.
In many developing countries more than half of rural households now have a mobile phone. In China and India, the two most populous nations in the world, over 90 per cent of villages are connected to mobile telephones.
The agency also reported that 75 per cent of households worldwide have television sets, but only 25 per cent have access to the Internet. While close to two thirds of people in the developed world have access to the Internet, four fifths of people in the developing world do not.
The ITU, however, noted that most of the Internet growth is taking place in the developing world, which accounted for 600 million of the 777 million new Internet users worldwide between the end of 2005 and the end of 2009.
By the end of 2008, there were more Internet users in the developing world than in the developed world, and in the four years to the end of 2009, fixed broadband penetration rates in the developing world almost tripled, and mobile broadband penetration rates grew more than tenfold, according to the ITU statistics.
In many developing countries more than half of rural households now have a mobile phone. In China and India, the two most populous nations in the world, over 90 per cent of villages are connected to mobile telephones.
The agency also reported that 75 per cent of households worldwide have television sets, but only 25 per cent have access to the Internet. While close to two thirds of people in the developed world have access to the Internet, four fifths of people in the developing world do not.
The ITU, however, noted that most of the Internet growth is taking place in the developing world, which accounted for 600 million of the 777 million new Internet users worldwide between the end of 2005 and the end of 2009.
By the end of 2008, there were more Internet users in the developing world than in the developed world, and in the four years to the end of 2009, fixed broadband penetration rates in the developing world almost tripled, and mobile broadband penetration rates grew more than tenfold, according to the ITU statistics.