The Covid-19 pandemic has increased inequality of internet access around the world, with almost half of households on the planet still having no internet connection.
Though digitisation has accelerated in 2020, with much of the global economy moving online, this hasn’t been accompanied by an increase in the number of people with internet connections in their homes. For more details on the Covid digital divide, read our full report on Tech Monitor.
The number of internet subscriptions worldwide is set to grow by just two per cent this year, down from eight per cent in 2019. Though this represents a degree of “natural saturation” according Martin Schaaper, senior ICT analyst at ITU, the pandemic has made it harder to increase capacity on the network, with engineers often unable to access vital infrastructure.
Click here to read the full story of the growing Covid digital divide.