The UN has set some aggressive goals for bringing the world online. The organization’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development has asked all countries to have broadband strategies in place by 2015. By that time, it has hopes that 50 percent of the populace living in developing countries, and 60 percent of those in developed nations, will have Internet access.
To achieve that goal in developing nations, the UN plans to have 40 percent of all households connected. It has also called for the services to be affordable, costing less than five percent of a household’s average income.
Progress of each country will be monitored by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Dr. Hamadoun Toure, the secretary-general of the ITU, believes the goals are “ambitious but achievable.” The ITU already has some benchmarks against which it will compare progress. In a recent study, the ITU found that about 20 percent of the world’s population has Internet access. That represents growth of 54 percent since 2008, when 13 percent could browse.
