India falls to 155th place in UN’s broadband penetration ranking

Centre is pushing the Digital India campaign and talking about broadband for all but country’s Internet growth is lagging that of most other countries.

• The UN Broadband Commission released “The State of Broadband” report just ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals Summit at UN headquarters in New York on September 26.

INDIA’s RANKING IN DIFFERENT INTERNET FIELDS AS PER UN REPORT

• India’s broadband penetration ranking has fallen to 155^th from 113^th rank
• India ranked 131 out of 189 countries on fixed-broadband subscriptions dropped from the 125th rank.
• India ranked 80 among 133 developing countries on percentage of households with internet in with a 3% penetration as compared to the 75^th rank and 13% penetration previously.

TOPPERS
In total, there are now 79 countries where over 50% of the population is online, up from 77 in 2014. Top 10 countries for household Internet penetration are all located in Asia or the Middle East.

• The Republic of Korea has the world’s highest household broadband penetration with 98.5% of homes connected.
• Qatar ranked 2^nd with 98%
• Saudi Arabia ranked 3^rd with 94%

UNEVEN GROWTH
The report said 3.2 billion people are now connected up from 2.9 billion last year and equating to 43% of the global population.

• Access to the internet is approaching saturation levels in the developed countries.
• Net is only accessible to 35% of people in developing countries.
• The situation in the UN-designated Least Developed Countries is critical with over 90% of people without any kind of Internet connectivity.