Macau tops telecom affordability rankings

Macau’s economy has the most affordable entry-level fixed-broadband plans, according to the annual Measuring the Information Society Report which was recently released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Other countries and regions that top the telecommunications affordability rates include Singapore, Kuwait, Qatar, Norway and Hong Kong. According to the report made by the Geneva-     based institution, Macau also ranks well in terms of Internet access, with 83 per cent of people linked to the web by the end of 2013.
Worldwide, the latest data shows that Internet use continues to grow steadily, at 6.6 per cent globally in 2014 (3.3 per cent in developed countries, 8.7 per cent in the developing world). The number of Internet users in developing countries has doubled over the past five years (2009-2014), with two-thirds of all users now living in the developing world.
Of the 4.3 billion people not yet using the Internet, 90 per cent live in developing countries. In the world’s 42 Least Connected Countries, which are home to 2.5 billion people, access to ICTs remains largely out of reach, particularly for these countries’ large rural populations.
In the mobile cellular segment, the report estimates that there will be 7bn mobile subscriptions by the end of 2014, roughly corresponding to the total global population. But the report warns against concluding that everyone is connected; instead, many users have multiple subscriptions, with global growth figures sometimes translating into little real improvement in the level of connectivity of those at the very bottom of the pyramid. An estimated 450 million people worldwide live in places which are still beyond the reach of mobile cellular service. PB