Bringing internet to half of the world

According to data published by the International Telecoms Union (ITU), the United Nations agency overseeing the telecoms industry, 3.9 billion people, or 51.2% of the world's total population, were already connected to the internet by the end of 2018. While the 50% mark was hit half a year earlier than the agency's previous estimate, it nevertheless means that half of the world's population remains unconnected.
Here we are sharing the opening section of this Telecoms.com Intelligence special briefing to look at the status of the unconnected and under-connected parts of the world and explores how the industry as well as the public sector can overcome the challenges to bring internet to the half of the world yet to be connected.
why half of the world is still unconnected
The low internet penetration is particularly acute in the developing countries. While 81% of the population in the developed world are already using the internet, only 45% in the developing countries can do so. Among them, less than 20% of the population in the 47 least developed countries, defined as "low-income countries that are suffering from long-term impediments to growth", enjoy this luxury.
There are three leading factors at play to leave a large part of the world off the grid. The first two are interlinked one way or another, the third is out of the telecoms industry's remit. The most obvious one is pure economics. Diminishing marginal return or increasing marginal cost, often both at the same time, means operators will be less and less motivated to connect the next subscriber than the last. This could be down to the distribution of population. The more sparsely populated the location is, the less rewarding for the operators to reach them it becomes, because, even if the returns are assumed to be equal, the cost will be higher. This could also be related to the socio-economic status of the people. The less well-off the population is, the less attractive it becomes for operators to make the effort, because, even if the cost could be assumed equal, the return would be lower.    Source_telecoms.com