Posted: 27th Jan, 2011 By: MarkJ

The
International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a telecommunications agency for the
United Nations (UN), reports that the total number of
internet users around the world ballooned to 2.08 Billion at the end of 2010. This compares well with the figure of 1.86 Billion a year earlier (2009).
ITU Head of, Hamadoun Toure, said:
"At the beginning of the year 2000 there were only 500 million mobile subscriptions globally and 250 million Internet users. By the beginning of this year 2011 those numbers have mushroomed to over five billion mobile users and two billion subscribers to the Internet."
To put that in context, the
world is currently home to a population of 6.8 Billion people. As a result nearly one person in three is now able to surf online. Some
57% of internet users reside in developing countries, which originally overtook developed nations 3 years ago.
The total numbers of fixed line broadband ISP subscribers in the world reached
550 Million last year, while the total number of Mobile Broadband subscriptions reached
940 Million. Elsewhere the number of
fixed telephone lines has declined to 1.2 Billion.