NEW YORK� The UN Broadband Commission has released a new report,The State of Broadband, which reveals that 57 percent of the world�s people remain offline and unable to take advantage of the benefits the Internet offers. This includes 90 percent of those living in the poorest nations.�
The latest figures indicates 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 percent of homes connected; Qatar is at 98 percent; Saudi Arabia is at 94 percent. The lowest levels of Internet access are mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, where Internet connectivity is available to less than 2 percent of the populations in Guinea, Somalia, Burundi and Eritrea, according to un.org.�
With respect to the data the UN Commission has brought to light, Facebook recently�announced a partnership with French satellite operatorEutelsatto provide broadband internet to sub-Saharan Africa. Under a multiyear agreement with satellite communications firm Spacecom, the two companies plan to use theAMOS-6satellite to �beam� internet connections across parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite is expected to come online during the second half of 2016, reportstheverge.com.
Eutelsat said its satellite partnership with Facebook would allow users to connect to the internet with “affordable, off-the-shelf” hardware.
