Internet status

Internet status

In about 10 years, Internet succeeded to gather about 1bn subscribers, of which more than 50% in WE and NA. Some developing countries are, however, doing well, such as China that crossed the 100m mark, or India with about 40m (+684%). The US concentrate about 94% of the worldwide traffic, generating some unequal situation, as they host most of the internet servers. The dominance of developed countries, and especially of cities, has now to be balanced by regional and rural projects to decrease the digital divide.

An international meeting focused on the Information Society, World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), will be held in November in Tunis. One of the main subjects will be the internet network control and the US position. In advance, the US State Dept has rejected requests for a UN body to assume control of the main computers which direct traffic on the Internet. Let us hope, however, that a mediation is still possible and a solution can be found.

ITU is publishing 2004 stats for all the countries. The file is available at: www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics