Qatar ranks second among the world’s top 10 countries for household Internet penetration, a report said, highlighting with 98 per cent of homes in the country are connected.

It falls just behind the Republic of Korea, with 98.5 per cent of homes connected, and comes ahead of Saudi Arabia (94 per cent) in third place, according to the 2015 edition of the “State of Broadband” report published by the United Nations Broadband Commission.

Qatar is first among developing countries for the number of people using the Internet (91.5 per cent) and is ranked #12 overall in the world, it said.

The report reveals that 57 per cent of the world’s people remain offline and unable to take advantage of the enormous economic and social benefits the Internet can offer.

Access to information and communication technologies, particularly broadband Internet, has the potential to serve as a major accelerator of development, with the importance of ICT connectivity specifically recognized in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals. With the 17 goals now firmly on the global agenda, governments and private industry both have a strong interest in finding ways to get people online, the report argues.

New figures in the report confirm that 3.2 billion people are now connected to the Internet, up from 2.9 billion last year and equating to 43 per cent of the global population, but while access to the Internet is approaching saturation levels in the developed world, the Net is only accessible to 35 per cent of people in developing countries.

The situation in the 48 UN-designated Least Developed Countries is particularly critical, with over 90 per cent of people without any kind of Internet connectivity.

“The UN Sustainable Development Goals remind us that we need to measure global development by the number of those being left behind,” said Houlin Zhao, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Zhao serves as co-vice chair of the Commission with UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova.

“The market has done its work connecting the world’s wealthier nations, where a strong business case for network roll-out can easily be made. Our important challenge now is to find ways of getting online the four billion people who still lack the benefits of Internet connectivity, and this will be a primary focus of the Broadband Commission going forward,” Zhao added.

Dr Nasser Marafih, Group CEO of Ooredoo, a leading telecom group, and a commissioner on the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, said: “The report highlights the global challenge that sees millions of people unable to access the life-changing benefits of Internet access. We believe that the mobile broadband has the power to improve people’s lives, communities and countries, and are convinced that governments, operators and regulators need to work together to address this crucial issue.”

According to the ITU there will be a total of almost 3.5 billion mobile broadband subscriptions by end 2015, with industry analysts predicting 6.5 billion mobile broadband (3G/4G/5G) subscriptions by 2019, making mobile broadband the fastest growing ICT service in history. The report also stated that the Asia-Pacific region now accounts for half of all active mobile broadband subscriptions.

The ITU has forecast 25 billion networked devices to be active by 2020, meaning connected devices could outnumber connected people by 6:1. – TradeArabia News Service