In The Next Five Years Over Half The World's Population Will Be Online

Over HALF The World's Population Will Have The Internet By 2020

In the next five years over half the world's population will be online -- that's 3.2 billion people if you're keeping count.

For those of us that are already online it seems slightly odd that human beings have somehow managed to make it to 2020 without getting tangled in the web.

A report by Cisco, stated that only 39 percent of the world is currently online.

In 2014, there were 2.8 billion internet users -- 39 percent of the world’s population (7.2 billion). A hard statistic to swallow when you think of all the online trolling that goes on.

A closer look at Britain's own connectedness suggests that we're not too internet friendly. According to the Office of National Statistics 5.9 million people have never used the internet at all.

Unsurprisingly, Wi-Fi and mobile devices will be responsible for 66 percent of IP traffic in the next five years. Last year, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic. Blame all the people constantly walking around with their eyes glued to their smartphone.

Some of the barriers to the whole world being online is the cost of installing cell towers in off-grid locations where firms don't expect to get a large revenue.

This is slowly changing however, with 69 percent of the global population set to be covered by a 3G network by the end of 2015.

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