Three in four people now use the Internet, but 2.2 billion remain offline, and for most of them the obstacle is no longer a missing signal but the cost of phones and data, limited skills and other barriers to use.
Updated October 13, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 people in the world, how many live within range of a mobile broadband network but do not use mobile internet?
2.2 billion
People offline
ITU estimate for 2025. About 6 billion people, 74% of the world population, used the Internet; most of those offline live in low- and middle-income countries.
Data year 2025. Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2025
3.1 billion
Covered but not using mobile internet
38% of the world population lived where mobile broadband was available but did not use mobile internet on a device of their own. Around 300 million people (4%) had no mobile broadband coverage.
Data year 2024. Source: GSMA, 2025
23%
Internet use in low-income countries
Share of the population using the Internet, compared with 94% in high-income countries. In rural areas of low-income countries the share was 14%.
Data year 2025. Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2025
Values as reported in the UN Sustainable Development Goals Extended Report 2026, based on ITU estimates; the 2025 value is an estimate made late in that year. Internet use grew by an average of 6.3% a year between 2015 and 2025, and by 3.3% in 2025. ITU revises past estimates as new data arrive, so values can differ from earlier publications.
SDG target 9.c aimed for universal and affordable Internet access in the least developed countries by 2020. In 2025 only 34% of people in these countries used the Internet, and 12% still lived outside mobile broadband coverage. A related international goal, that entry-level broadband in developing countries should cost no more than 2% of GNI per capita by 2025, was met for at least one type of service in only 54 low- and middle-income economies, about four in ten. ITU counts Internet use of at least 95% as universal; the global figure was 74%.
Globally, 77% of men and 71% of women used the Internet in 2025, about 280 million more men than women. The global gender parity score of 0.92 was the same as in 2019, so the gap has not narrowed.
Source: United Nations Statistics Division, 202685% of urban residents use the Internet, compared with 58% of rural residents. In low-income countries the gap is much wider: only 14% of rural people are online, and only 38% of rural inhabitants live within reach of a 4G network.
Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2025Internet use averages 36% in Africa, against 88% to 93% in Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Americas. In the least developed countries 34% of people are online, and in landlocked developing countries 38%.
Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2025The divide extends to quality: 5G networks reach 84% of people in high-income countries but 4% in low-income countries, and a typical user in a high-income country generates nearly eight times as much mobile data as one in a low-income country.
Source: International Telecommunication Union, 2025Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
Loading country values…
100 minus the share of people who used the internet from any location and on any device in the last three months; latest year available per country, mostly 2024 (years differ, back to 2017), and values before 2017 are not shown, so a few places with only older figures (for example North Korea, Turkmenistan, Samoa and Vanuatu) appear as no data. How the figures are collected differs between countries, and using the internet at least once in three months does not mean having an affordable, fast or regular connection.
Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
ModerateThe share of people using the Internet rose from 40% in 2015 to 74% in 2025, a large change in a decade. But more than a quarter of the world is still offline, including most people in sub-Saharan Africa (36% online) and the least developed countries (34%).
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateMobile broadband is a mature technology: 3G or better reaches 96% of the world population and 4G reaches 93%. Ways to close the much larger usage gap, such as cheaper devices, skills training and satellite service for remote areas, are far less proven.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
ModerateNetworks reach almost everyone, but affordable and good-quality service does not. In 2025 only about four in ten low- and middle-income economies met the 2% affordability target, and 4G covered just 56% of people in low-income countries.
ITU's global figures are estimates that can change substantially: in 2025 it revised its estimate of people offline in 2024 from 2.6 billion to 2.3 billion. ITU and the GSMA also define use differently, so their headline numbers do not match.
Internet use grew by 3.3% in 2025, slightly faster than the year before, and by 7.4% in the least developed countries. Progress is uneven: the gender parity score has not moved since 2019, and mobile broadband coverage has gained only six percentage points since 2018.
For a growing share of humanity, the Internet is where people look for work, study, deal with public services, send and receive money and follow the news. Between 2015 and 2025 the share of the world population using it rose from 40% to 74%, or about 6 billion people. Yet an estimated 2.2 billion people were still offline in 2025, most of them in low- and middle-income countries, and many people counted as online have only a slow connection, a basic or shared phone, or data they can seldom afford. As more services move online, being offline increasingly means being cut off from opportunities and support that others take for granted.
The divide follows income, place and gender. In low-income countries 23% of people use the Internet, against 94% in high-income countries, and in the rural areas of low-income countries only 14% are online. Women are less likely than men to be online, and globally that gap has not narrowed since 2019. A missing signal is no longer the main obstacle: around 300 million people live outside mobile broadband coverage, but 3.1 billion live within range and still do not use mobile internet. The barriers they report most often are the cost of a handset, limited literacy and digital skills, and concerns about safety and security.
There is no single measure of the digital divide. The SDGs follow it through Internet use (target 17.8), mobile network coverage (target 9.c) and ICT skills (target 4.4), and researchers add measures of cost and of the quality of connections:
Internet use (indicator 17.8.1)
The share of individuals using the Internet. ITU publishes the global and regional figures; those for the latest year are estimates, and past values are revised as new national data arrive. By convention, ITU treats a usage rate of at least 95% as universal.
Mobile network coverage (indicator 9.c.1)
The share of the population living within range of a mobile network, reported by technology (3G, 4G, 5G). It records whether a signal is available, not whether people use it, can afford it or get adequate speed.
Coverage gap and usage gap
The GSMA, the mobile industry association, splits people who do not use mobile internet into a coverage gap (living outside mobile broadband coverage) and a usage gap (living within coverage but not using it). It counts only people who use mobile internet on a device of their own, so its figures are lower than ITU's count of Internet users.
Affordability and meaningful connectivity
The Broadband Commission's benchmark is that entry-level broadband should cost less than 2% of monthly gross national income (GNI) per person. ITU's broader idea of universal and meaningful connectivity also asks whether connections are fast and reliable, whether people have a suitable device and the skills to use it, and whether they are safe online.
What works
Building and upgrading mobile broadband networks has brought a signal to most of the world, and regulators can cut costs by letting or requiring operators to share towers and other infrastructure. The share of the world population living outside mobile broadband coverage fell from 19% in 2015 to 4% in 2024.
Limits
Reaching the remaining 4%, around 300 million people, is proving slow and complex, and many covered areas get only older, slower technology. Coverage on its own does not bring people online: 3.1 billion people live under coverage but do not use mobile internet.
What works
Competition between operators, coherent regulation and regular price monitoring tend to bring prices down. In 2025 the global median price of an entry-level mobile broadband basket fell from 1.5% to 1.4% of GNI per capita, and 130 of 205 economies met the 2% affordability target.
Limits
Average prices hide what the poorest can pay. Relative to income, people in low-income economies pay about 22 times more for mobile broadband than people in high-income economies, and where fixed broadband is available in low-income countries it costs more than a quarter of average income.
What works
Courses run by schools, libraries, community centres, non-profits and mobile operators teach people how to use a smartphone, find information and stay safe online, tackling one of the barriers people who are not online report most often.
Limits
There is little comparable evidence on which programmes work at scale. Only 88 countries have reported skills data since 2020, and in the eight countries with overall measures the share of Internet users with at least basic skills ranged from 16% to 74%.
What works
Fixed connections over fibre or cable provide the speed and capacity that schools, clinics and businesses need, and fibre backbones also carry traffic for mobile networks. Fixed broadband subscriptions grew by an average of 5.9% a year from 2015 to reach 20 per 100 people worldwide in 2025.
Limits
Fixed networks are costly to build outside towns, and in the least connected regions there are still fewer than 5 fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Large constellations of satellites in low orbit can deliver broadband to places where towers or cables are impractical, and satellite services grew quickly in 2024. Use is still very small, at less than one satellite subscription per 1,000 people worldwide. Users pay for the terminal and a monthly fee, and whether prices can fall to what low-income rural households can afford is unproven; the fast growth of constellations also raises risks of collisions and space debris.
Satellite links built into mobile network standards could let ordinary phones connect in places without towers. ITU expects this integration into 5G and later 6G networks to bring further gains, but services are at an early stage and their capacity, price and usefulness in low-income countries are not yet known.
Networks built and run by local communities, cooperatives or small operators can serve villages that commercial operators find unprofitable. Their reach is small and their long-term financial and organisational sustainability is the main open question, which an ITU study published in 2026 examined through case studies in Asia and the Pacific.
The GSMA estimates that an Internet-enabled handset priced at around US$30 could make devices affordable for up to 1.6 billion people. This is a modelled estimate; whether phones at that price can be made durable and secure enough and sold at scale has not yet been shown.
Implementation gap
Affordability, mainly of handsets, is the barrier most often cited by people who know about mobile internet but do not use it. In low- and middle-income countries an entry-level Internet-enabled phone costs about 16% of average monthly income, and 48% for the poorest fifth of the population.
Technology gap
About 312 million people still live outside mobile broadband coverage, almost half of them in Africa. Coverage has risen by only six percentage points since it first passed 90% in 2018, and 19% of rural people in the least developed countries remain uncovered.
Implementation gap
In 4 of 15 low- and middle-income countries surveyed in 2024, between 25% and 41% of people had not heard of mobile internet. Limited literacy and digital skills was the second most common barrier and safety and security concerns the third.
Technology gap
In low-income countries 4G covers only 56% of the population and 5G is essentially unavailable in rural areas, so many people who are counted as connected cannot use services that need more data, such as video lessons or telemedicine.
Knowledge gap
Only 88 countries have reported data on ICT skills since 2020, only 48 of them comparably, and only eight on overall skill levels. Without such data it is hard to know who lacks skills or which programmes help.
Coordination gap
Closing the gap needs action on networks, device costs, skills, school connectivity and online safety at the same time, but in many countries these sit with different ministries, regulators and donors that do not share a plan or common data.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
How much do Internet access and use improve incomes, learning and health for low-income households, and which kinds of connection and use make the difference?
Can satellite broadband and satellite-to-phone services be priced within reach of low-income rural households, and how should spectrum, orbits and space debris be governed as constellations multiply?
Why are women less likely to use mobile internet even when their education, income and literacy are similar to men's, and which measures change that?
Which approaches to training lead to lasting, safe and productive Internet use among adults with limited literacy, and how can results be measured consistently across countries?
Volunteer with a library, community centre or local organisation that teaches basic digital skills, or help a relative or neighbour set up a phone, use public services online and recognise scams.
Give working smartphones, tablets or laptops you no longer need to a refurbishing or donation programme that erases data securely and recycles what cannot be reused.
If you make websites, apps or online services, keep pages light, offer text alternatives to video and test on low-cost phones and slow networks, so that people with basic connections can use them.
Find out whether your government's development cooperation supports affordable connectivity and digital skills in the least developed countries, and raise it with your elected representatives.
Ideas visitors sent in for this challenge, read by the DO GOOD team and pinned with permission. The colour shows the kind of contribution.
Loading the board…
What happens next
The DO GOOD team reads every idea and sorts it by colour: solution, research question, existing project, evidence or local action.
If you agree to publication, it can be pinned to this board. Contact details are never shown.
Pinned ideas are not reviewed by scientists and are not endorsed by DO GOOD.
This page is a research overview. DO GOOD does not run a dedicated programme on this challenge, and donations are not earmarked for it. You can join our volunteer work and outreach.
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), published 2025
ITU's annual estimates for 2025: 74% of the world population online and 2.2 billion offline, Internet use by income group, region, LDCs, gender and urban or rural area, mobile network coverage by technology, affordability against the 2% target, ICT skills data and mobile phone ownership.
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), published 2025
ITU release accompanying Facts and Figures 2025, with the 5G coverage gap by income group, mobile data use per user and the revision of the 2024 estimates of people online and offline.
United Nations Statistics Division (data from ITU), published 2026
Official UN progress report on indicator 17.8.1 (Internet use: 40% in 2015, 71% in 2024, 74% in 2025), the gender gap in Internet use, regional and LDC figures, and fixed broadband subscriptions (indicator 17.6.1).
GSMA, published 2025
Mobile industry estimates for 2024 of mobile internet users (4.7 billion), the usage gap (3.1 billion, 38%) and coverage gap (about 300 million, 4%) with trends since 2015, plus handset affordability and gender and rural gaps in low- and middle-income countries, based partly on surveys in a limited set of countries.
GSMA, published 2025
Results of the GSMA Consumer Survey in 15 low- and middle-income countries in 2024 on awareness of mobile internet and the barriers people report, including affordability, literacy and digital skills, and safety and security.
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), published 2025
ITU assessment of connectivity infrastructure, including the growth and very low penetration of satellite broadband (under one subscription per 1,000 inhabitants), non-terrestrial networks in 5G and 6G, and space sustainability risks.