ITU: "growth in Internet use has slowed down"

 

The ITU's "flagship annual Measuring the Information Society Report", was released and reveals the following:

• 3.2 billion people are now online, representing 43.4% of the global population

• Mobile-cellular subscriptions have reached almost 7.1 billion worldwide, with over 95% of the global population now covered by a mobile-cellular signal
   
• By the end of this year, 46% of households globally will have Internet access at home, up from 44% last year and just 30% five years ago, in 2010. 

• Growth in Internet use has slowed down, however, posting 6.9% global growth in 2015, after 7.4% growth in 2014.
   
• Fastest growth continues to be seen in mobile broadband, with the number of mobile-broadband subscriptions worldwide having grown more than four-fold in five years, from 0.8 billion in 2010 to an estimated 3.5 billion in 2015.
   
• The number of fixed-broadband subscriptions has risen much more slowly, to an estimated 0.8 billion today.
   
• The report notes that the proportion of households projected to have Internet access in 2020 will reach 56%, exceeding the Connect 2020 target of 55% worldwide.
    
• The price of mobile-cellular services continues to fall across the world.

See "ITU releases annual global ICT data and ICT Development Index country rankings" - here.

ITU: "57% of the world’s people remain offline"

A new report by the ITU finds that "Broadband Internet is failing to reach those who could benefit most, with Internet access reaching near-saturation in the world’s rich nations but not advancing fast enough to benefit the billions of people living in the developing world".

Other highlights:

• 57% of the world’s people remain offline
   
• 3.2 billion people are now connected, up from 2.9 billion last year and equating to 43% of the global population.
   
• the Net is only accessible to 35% of people in developing countries.
   
• the top ten countries for household Internet penetration are all located in Asia or the Middle East. The Republic of Korea continues to have the world’s highest household broadband penetration, with 98.5% of homes connected; Qatar (98%) and Saudi Arabia (94%) are ranked second and third respectively.  
• Iceland has the highest percentage of individuals using the Internet (98.2%), just ahead of near-neighbours Norway (96.3%) and Denmark (96%).

• Monaco remains very slightly ahead of Switzerland as the world leader in fixed broadband penetration, at over 46.8% of the population compared with the Swiss figure of 46%. There are now six economies (Monaco, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Liechtenstein and France) where fixed broadband penetration exceeds 40%, up from just one (Switzerland) in 2013.  

• The Asia-Pacific region now accounts for half of all active mobile broadband subscriptions, with Macao, China easily taking top place with 322 active mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 people – or just over 3 subscriptions per inhabitant – followed by second-ranked Singapore (156 subscriptions per 100 people) and Kuwait (140 subscriptions per 100 people).  

• In total, there are now 79 countries where over 50% of the population is online, up from 77 in 2014. The top ten countries for Internet use are all located in Europe.  

• The lowest levels of Internet access are mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, with Internet available to less than 2% of the population in Guinea (1.7%), Somalia (1.6%), Burundi (1.4%), Timor Leste (1.1%) and Eritrea (1.0).

See "Global broadband growth slows sharply: 4 billion still offline" - here.

ITU: By end 2014 - 3B People on the Internet

The ITU published new figures indicating that, "..by end 2014, there will be almost 3 billion Internet users, two-thirds of them coming from the developing world

..the number of mobile-broadband subscriptions will reach 2.3 billion globally .. Mobile-cellular subscriptions will reach almost 7 billion by end 2014 ..  mobile-cellular growth rates have reached their lowest-ever level (2.6% globally), indicating that the market is approaching saturation levels .. Globally, mobile-broadband penetration will reach 32 per cent by end 2014.
    

Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 2007-2014

 By end 2014, fixed-broadband penetration will have reached almost 10 per cent globally

Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 2005-2014

Mobile-broadband penetration levels are highest in Europe (64%) and the Americas (59%), followed by CIS (49%), the Arab States (25%), Asia-Pacific (23%) and Africa (19%).

Home internet access approaches saturation levels in developed countries. By end 2014, 44 per cent of the world’s households will have Internet access".

Percentage of households with Internet access,  by level of development, 2005-2014

 
See "ITU releases 2014 ICT figures" - here.

ITU: 70% of all Countries have a National Broadband Plan

A new report by the ITU's Broadband Commission covers the status of Broadband services around the globe.

"Affordable broadband connectivity, services and applications are essential to modern society, offering widely recognized social and economic benefits. The Broadband Commission for Digital Development promotes the adoption of broadband-friendly practices and policies for all, so everyone can take advantage of the benefits offered by broadband".

Among other aspects, the report shows the adaptation of National Broadband plans.

Source: ITU/UNESCO

"Although in many countries, broadband deployment has been realized through the efforts of the private sector, Governments play an essential role in ensuring a stable regulatory and legal framework to foster and incentivize investments, create a level playing-field amongst the different actors present in the market, establish adequate spectrum policy and reasonable spectrum allocation, and ensure long-term and sustainable competition. Governments can also implement programmes such as e-government, digital literacy initiatives and connected public institutions and locations. 



Progress on policy leadership is relatively recent, with an explosion in the number of countries introducing broadband plans in 2009-2010 (Figure 4). Prior to 2006, most plans focused on information society issues, with broadband coming to the fore from 2008 onwards. More recently, Digital Agendas have grown in popularity, incorporating a cross-sectoral perspective. By mid-2013, some 134 or 69% of all countries had a national plan, strategy, or policy in place to promote broadband, and a further 12 countries or 6% were planning to introduce such measures in the near future (Figure 5). However, some 47 countries (or nearly a quarter of all countries) still do not have any plan, strategy or policy in place. Even if countries have plans, achieving progress in implementation may prove challenging or slow".

World Map, according to status of National Broadband Plan (NBP);
Source: ITU/UNESCO

See "The State of Broadband 2013: Universalizing broadband" - here.

ITU Compiles IP Traffic Stats; "Net Neutrality Debate will Continue"

The ITU's "Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2013" regulatory report (here) finds that "Triggered by the growing number of Internet connections over mobile and fixed platforms, monthly Internet protocol (IP) traffic has skyrocketed from the modest 1 petabyte two decades ago, to an estimated 44’000 petabytes in 2012".

The ITU compiled a chart from multiple sources:

On Net Neutrality, ITU says "one of the key questions in the net neutrality debate concerns what types of traffic management are acceptable (and what triggers their use) and which are not. Ofcom, for example, has placed management practices on a spectrum [see chart below], which shows the progression from traffic management that does not raise concerns (and will generally improve efficiency), to those measures considered more problematic"

"In many ways, the net neutrality debate will continue to be shaped by the changing dynamics of the ICT market. Fixed line and mobile operators facing increasing capital investment costs will continue to seek more equitable business and revenue sharing models. In turn, service providers are responding by taking measures to protect their own interests, such as reducing reliance on public networks by using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) or by building or acquiring their own networks". 

"Going forward, both regulatory and business models will need to adjust to ensure that investment in advanced networks and services is encouraged. There is ongoing debate on the appropriate regulatory model for access, with proponents of net neutrality regulation calling for greater investment in and upgrades to both access and backhaul networks. Likewise, new business models are being suggested to deal with the investment needed to serve new bandwidth-hungry content and applications. These include charging service providers more for prioritization (faster or higher quality service for latency-sensitive services) and providing guaranteed network capacity and quality of service for end users". 

ITU New Approved Video Codec will Save 50% Bitrate

The ITU has approved "A new video coding standard building on the PrimeTime Emmy award winning ITU-T H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC .. The new standard, known informally as ‘High Efficiency Video Coding’ (HEVC) will need only half the bit rate of its predecessor,ITU-T H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10 ‘Advanced Video Coding’ (AVC), which currently accounts for over 80 per cent of all web video".

"HEVC will unleash a new phase of innovation in video production spanning the whole ICT spectrum, from mobile devices through to Ultra-High Definition TV .. ITU-T H.265 / ISO/IEC 23008-2 HEVC will provide a flexible, reliable and robust solution, future-proofed to support the next decade of video. The new standard is designed to take account of advancing screen resolutions and is expected to be phased in as high-end products and services outgrow the limits of current network and display technology".

"Companies including ATEME, Broadcom, Cyberlink, Ericsson [see "Ericsson to Launch New Video Encoder for Live TV over Mobile" - here], Fraunhofer HHI, Mitsubishi, NHK, NTT DOCOMO and Qualcomm have already showcased implementations of HEVC. The new standard includes a ‘Main’ profile that supports 8-bit 4:2:0 video, a ‘Main 10’ profile with 10-bit support, and a ‘Main Still Picture’ profile for still image coding that employs the same coding tools as a video ‘intra’ picture".

See "New video codec to ease pressure on global networks" - here.

ITU Approves DPI Recommendation (T.2770); Google Protests

The ITU approved on November 20, the Y.2770 Recommendation- "Requirements for deep packet inspection in Next Generation Networks".

The ITU does not publish the recommendation to the public, but I was able to locate what seems to be one of the revisions of the document (here).

The recommendation opened a public relations battle (see "ITU packet inspection standard raises serious privacy concerns" - here). Google joined the battle in a colorful way - its home page is now linking to "Take Action", calling for a "A free and open world depends on a free and open web" (here).

Leading CTOs: SDN has Great Potential; Needs Vision and Standardization

While Software­‐defined networks (SDN) is still a term used in many ways (eg. - "Ericsson CTO: Let's Redefine SDN" - here), and maybe because of that, CTOs of major equipment vendors and operators feel it needs a  "strategic vision" and standardization.

Members of the ITU CTO Meeting forum (Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Etisalat, Fujitsu, Huawei, KDDI, NEC, NSN, NTT, Orange FT, RIM, Telecom Italia, Telkom SA, Verizon and the ITU - see names here) identified  SDN as a ".. potential means to allow carrier networks to develop and deploy new services with great speed and flexibility. SDN was recognized as an innovative and perhaps also disruptive technology. SDN enables programmable interfaces to a network’s control and data planes, including capabilities such as network resource virtualization and network resource orchestration that can potentially optimize the use of network resources".

 

"CTOs noted ITU-T’s current work and standards on network virtualization frameworks and architectures, and requested that ITU-T continue exploring the applications of SDN in access networks, mobile backhaul, broadband network gateways, metro networks, and optical transport networks".
    

See "CTO MEETING COMMUNIQUÉ (Nov 18, 2012)" - here.

The EU Views on Net Neutrality for the Coming ITU Meeting

      

While ISPs in EU countries are using traffic shaping and DPI (see "BEREC: 'traffic management and differentiation practices are capable of being used for questionable purposes'" - here and "BEREC: Blocking/throttling P2P and VoIP with DPI is Frequently Done in Europe" - here) the European Parliament thinks that the world should be a better place, and expects the UN to lead that.

The Parliament published a decision related to the coming ITU meeting in Dubai from 3 to 14 December 2012, in view of its "resolution on the open internet and net neutrality in Europe" [see "EU is Getting Closer to Net Neutrality" - here].

Among other things:

• Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure that any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations are compatible with the EU acquis and further the Union’s objective of, and interest in, advancing the internet as a truly public place ..
   
• Believes that the ITU, or any other single, centralised international institution, is not the appropriate body to assert regulatory authority over either internet governance or internet traffic flows ..
   
• Is concerned that the ITU reform proposals include the establishment of new profit mechanisms that could seriously threaten the open and competitive nature of the internet, driving up prices, hampering innovation and limiting access; recalls that the internet should remain free and open; See "European ISPs Suggest New Internet Business Models" - here and  "ITU to Review QoS and Traffic Management vs. Net Neutrality" - here. 

See "European Parliament resolution on the forthcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-2012) of the International Telecommunications Union, and the possible expansion of the scope of international telecommunication regulations" - here.

ITU: "individual Internet use continues to lag behind"

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development (ITU) has released its "..first-ever country-by-country snapshot of the state of broadband deployment worldwide .. The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion for All report evaluates the roll-out of broadband around the world and tracks progress towards achieving the four advocacy targets set by the Commission in 2011 for boosting broadband affordability and uptake. It provides country rankings across up to 177 economies on economic impact, penetration, national broadband policy, and connecting people and dwellings'".

"..The report reveals that while household Internet access has seen strong growth over the past year and is on track to achieve the Commission’s target for Connecting Homes to Broadband, individual Internet use continues to lag behind. ITU analysts believe that mobile broadband could prove the platform for achieving the boost needed to get progress back on track – at end 2011, there were already almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions as fixed broadband connections"

See "UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development releases first global broadband report" - here.

ITU to Review QoS and Traffic Management vs. Net Neutrality

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is going to discuss in its World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) (Dubai, 3-14 December 2012) the relation between Traffic management, Quality of Service (QoS) and Network Neutrality.
  

A background brief document explains:

"WHETHER A COMMUNICATION NETWORK delivers the applications you expect as a subscriber, at the promised speed and with all features as advertised, depends upon quality of service, or QoS. The concept is part of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) .. To continue providing adequate QoS, network operators and service providers can build more infrastructure — but this requires huge investments to deal with the enormous growth expected in traffic".

"The parallel solution is traffic management .. Agreements might be struck between Internet service providers (ISPs) and companies that offer applications or content, so that better QoS is given to their transmissions over a network, leaving other customers with less Then there are the so-called “over the top,” or OTT, services (such as Skype) that run through the networks “on top” of the basic provision of Internet access. Operators might seek to charge for reserving a percentage of capacity for these services — which is then not available for general access to the Internet".

"There are proposals to revise the ITRs in order to respond to these changes in technology and the marketplace. In particular, it has been proposed [see "European ISPs Suggest New Internet Business Models" - here] to replace “minimum quality of service” in Article 4.3 with “satisfactory quality of service,” while administrations should ensure that there is transparency in this area so consumers know exactly what they are getting. At present, an ordinary user of the Internet might not know whether his or her connection is slow because of traffic congestion, or because of intentional techniques employed by an operator or ISP".

"Administrations will come together to review the ITRs at the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12). Decisions made there that have an impact on QoS and network neutrality could affect the future development of Internet access, and what quality of experience we can enjoy online".

See "Quality of Service and “Net Neutrality” - here.

European ISPs Suggest New Internet Business Models

Leading European ISPs said, more than once, that they wish to charge OTT content providers for delivering their content to subscribers, which may not match the ideas behind net neutrality (see "European Telcos do not Like Regulation and OTT!" - here; "European Carriers Ask [Again] to Charge Content Providers [Google]" - here and statements from DT, Telecom Italia).

So it is no longer just statements given to the press. ETNO,  an organization that represent 41 ISPs (including Belgacom, KPN, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor, swisscom, and Telefonica), submitted a proposal to the ITU "for changes to the ITRs providing for a new sustainable model for the Internet based on commercial agreements between undertakings".

  

"This contribution calls for a new IP interconnection ecosystem that provides end-to-end Quality of Service delivery, in addition to best effort delivery, enabling:

• the provision of value-added network services, to both end-customers and over the top (OTT) players and content providers, and
   
• a reflection of the value of traffic delivery over network infrastructures.

Moreover, the contribution states that in order to ensure an adequate return on investment in high bandwidth infrastructures, operating agencies shall negotiate commercial agreements to achieve a sustainable system of fair compensation for telecommunications services.

By endorsing the concept of “quality based delivery”, it will be possible to establish new interconnection policies based on the “value” of the traffic (not only on the “volume”), enabling new business models and implementing an ecosystem where operators’ revenues will not be disconnected from the investment needs made necessary by the rapid growth of Internet traffic". 

See also BEREC: "traffic management and differentiation practices are capable of being used for questionable purposes" - here.

See "ETNO proposes a number of changes to selected articles of the ITRs, in view of the WCIT (World Conference on International Telecommunications)" - here and the proposal text - here. 

ITU: "Internet bandwidth has grown exponentially over the last five years"

    

Some facts from the ITU's "The World in 2011 - ICT: Fact and Figures" (here):

• One third of the world’s population is online
   
• With 5.9 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions, global penetration reaches 87%, and 79% in the developing world
   
• Mobile-broadband subscriptions have
  grown 45% annually over the last four years and today there are twice as many mobile-broadband as fixed broadband subscriptions
   
• Of 1.8 billion households worldwide, one third have Internet access, compared to only one fifth
  five years ago
   
• International Internet bandwidth, a key factor for providing high-speed Internet access to a growing number of Internet users has grown exponentially over the last five years, from 11’000 Gbit/s in 2006, to close to 80’000 Gbit/s in 2011 (see chart)
   
• Advertised and real speeds can differ substantially. In some countries, regulatory authorities monitor the speed and quality of broadband services and oblige operators to provide accurate quality-of-service information to end users information to end users

For the last point see also "UK: Transparency for Unlimited and "up-to" Service Speeds" - here. 

ITU Urges Governments to Release Extra Spectrum for Mobile Broadband - US Allots $18.2B

   

ITU's Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré says that "Governments need to take urgent action now to support mobile broadband growth .. Mobile operators have been investing billions to upgrade and improve the capacity and performance of their networks, but in some high-usage cities, such as San Francisco, New York and London, we are still seeing users frustrated by chronic problems of network unavailability .. Robust National Broadband Plans that promote extra spectrum and the faster roll-out of the fibre networks which are essential to mobile backhaul are vital to support the growing number of data-intensive application".

See "Network congestion set to worsen ITU calls for international broadband commitment" - here.

See also: "US and UK Regulators to add Mobile Spectrum for Data" - here, "Obama details $18.2 billion wireless broadband plan" - here and the video below (Obama's advisor, Melody Barnes says: "we are building on top of what the private sector is doing and filling in the gaps that are missing".

ITU: 9.5% of World Population has Mobile Broadband Subscriptions

In its latest report "Measuring the Information Society 2010" (executive summary - here), the ITU publishes some interesting facts on the proliferation of internet and broadband services.

According to the ITU, by the end of 2009:

• 26% of world population (1.7B people) were using the Internet
   
• Internet penetration in developed countries reached 64%
   
• Internet penetration at developing countries reached only 18%
• There were an estimated 640M mobile and 490M fixed broadband  subscriptions.