Despite a rapid rise in mobile connections and the economic and social benefits of such connectivity, more than half of the world ended 2014 unconnected. For this reason, industry commentators believe the biggest impact of mobile technology is still to come – especially for Africa, which remains the most unconnected territory in the world.

Global Internet users – fixed and mobile – grew from 1.6-billion in 2008 to 2.9-billion by the end of 2014 – accounting for about 40% of the world’s population. This left an estimated 4.4-billion people – 64% living in rural regions and 90% in the developing world – unconnected.

Even given the current pace of Internet adoption, it is estimated that 3.6-billion or 40% of the world’s population will still be offline by 2018.

Some people are still excluded from even accessing basic mobile services, as around 450-million people worldwide live out of reach of a mobile signal, notwithstanding a high global penetration of 87% for mobile-cellular services for rural populations.

New data released by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) indicates that, while more than three out of four people are online in developed countries, only one out of three is online in the developing world. In Africa, almost 20% of the population came online by the end of 2014, a 10% rise on the connected in 2010.

The gap, industry practitioners believe, will largely be addressed by growth in mobile Internet, which was defined as wireless access to the Internet through a mobile phone, smartphone, USB wireless modem, tablet or other mobile device, and mobile broadband, which represented access to mobile Internet through high-speed third-generation (3G) or fourth-generation (4G) mobile connections.

A widespread lack of fixed-line infrastructure and inherent low levels of computer ownership, which was under 10% in developing regions, has allowed mobile devices to become the primary communication platform for the majority of the developing world, with billions of people’s first contact with the Internet expected to be through a mobile device.

Mobile Internet and mobile broadband are widely accepted to be the next wave of industry growth and mobile operators globally have made significant capital investments of over $1-trillion globally in the past six years, with focus on improving network coverage and facilitating the growth in mobile broadband connections.

In its latest ‘Digital Inclusion’ report, GSMA notes that mobile phones have become the most popular form of personal technology on the planet, with 3.6-billion unique mobile subscribers and 7.2-billion connections.

The Broadband Commission’s review of the state of broadband suggests that 1.76-billion people were using smartphones by the end of 2014, while Ericsson estimates that, by 2019, there could be 5.6-billion smartphone subscriptions.

Rising Trend
The drive in mobile Internet use will see mobile operator data revenues surpass that of voice by 2018.

Mobile-Internet connections overtook fixed-broadband connections globally in 2008 and mobile data traffic had surpassed desktop traffic in 2014.

The Broadband Commission’s ‘The State of Broadband: 2014’ report shows that, by the end of 2014, mobile broadband subscriptions exceeded fixed broadband subscriptions by a ratio of over 3:1, up from 2:1 three years ago.

Global mobile-broadband penetration reached 32% at the end 2014 – almost double the penetration rate of 2011 and four times as high as in 2009 – indicating that mobile broadband has emerged as the fastest growing market segment, delivering continuous double-digit growth.

ITU’s ‘Measuring the Information Society’ report shows that, in developed countries, mobile-broadband penetration will reach 84% – a level four times as high as the 21% recorded in developing countries.

The African Opportunity
As the region with the lowest Internet penetration rates, Africa stands out with a growth rate of over 40% – twice as high as the global average.

By the end of 2014, mobile-broadband penetration in Africa had reached almost 20%, up from less than 2% four years earlier.

With roughly two-thirds of the population in Africa – where unique subscriber-penetration rates remain lower than any other region and less than one in three people have subscribed to mobile services, compared with the global average of one in two – still without a mobile subscription, there is much room for growth.

GSMA data shows that smartphones account for 40% to 50% of total handsets in the developed world, but remain below 10% in the developing world.

However, mobile-phone penetration in the region is expected to increase from 52% in 2012 to 79% in 2020, while mobile-broadband connections are anticipated to quadruple from its 2012 figure to reach 160-million in 2016, new research by Frost & Sullivan shows.

Mobile broadband will also be the driver behind the mobile market as fixed-lines are constrained by cost, coverage and reliability, with Africa on the cusp of an explosion of mobile data as 3G and 4G deployments gain scale and advanced capabilities appear on increasingly affordable handsets.

The cost of mobile devices and data plans have been falling in recent years, with an entry-level smartphone now costing around $63, down from $296 in 2003, GSMA notes.

“Overall, in terms of mobile-phone use, sub-Saharan Africa will be the fastest growing region globally over the next seven years,” says Frost & Sullivan information and communication technologies industry analyst Joanita Roos.

Economic Benefits
The mobile industry already contributes more than 6% of sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), higher than any comparable region globally, and this is expected to rise to over 8% of regional GDP by 2020, the Mobile for Development report by GSMA reveals.

The Internet industry could account for up to 10% or $300-billion of Africa’s yearly GDP by 2025 – a rise on the current 1% – owing to the transformation effects on retail, education and healthcare.

Globally, the industry contributed about 2.9% of global GDP in 2010, or $1.7-trillion, rising to around 3.6% or $2.4-trillion in 2013.

In the last five years, the Internet accounted for 10% of total GDP growth in China, India and Brazil and this trend was accelerating across the developing world.

Mobile Internet and mobile broadband may emerge as a significant opportunity to entrench the digital economy in Africa, says Ericsson CEO and president Hans Vestberg; however, the needs of Africa will set the bar for mobile use.

The use of mobile devices for education, ehealth and financial services, besides others, is increasing, indicating that, while social media had a significant uptake in Africa, the biggest uptake would be in its use to advance people.

A report by the Broadband Commission shows technology commentators are often “seduced by the promise of a hyper-connected world”, with focus remaining on embedded ambient intelligence, automated machine-to-machine traffic, ubiquitous connectivity and the ‘Internet of Everything’.

However, the real information revolution may lie in the growing day-by-day use of Internet-enabled devices in all parts of our lives.

The Broadband Commission says it is this era of mass connectivity – delivering small, but incremental changes to the ways in which each individual does things – that promises to transform development and global welfare.

“As mobile devices start to gain popularity in sub-Saharan Africa, other related end-user trends are also beginning to surface,” adds Roos, citing a large mass of the population in rural regions, in particular, unbanked, and mobile financial services closing this gap.

“Mass connectivity with broadband can improve our lives in a myriad of ways – by providing better access to health services, enabling financial inclusion through m-payments, empowering people through online education and creating transparency in government, for example,” the Commission explains.

Competing Imperatives
However, even with globally declining prices of data and devices and the potential of mobile access, many of the unconnected rural population still have to prioritise food, shelter, water and energy over Internet access and this created one of the barriers to mobile-Internet adoption.

In addition, the deployment of broadband and information and communication technology networks in remote and rural areas faces particular challenges, including low population density, limited infrastructure, challenging geography and lower incomes, which can all eat into operating margins, making it difficult for networks to remain commercially viable.

A general lack of awareness, insufficient user capability, and language and digital illiteracy, in addition to locally irrelevant content and services and cultural or social rejection of the technology also hindered mass mobile adoption.

Literacy is essential for understanding mobile phone user interface, reading its display and using its keyboard, while a lack of English literacy further prevents many native language speakers from using the mobile Internet, as 55% of websites use English as the primary language.

A GSMA-led survey quoted 13 000 African individuals, spread across Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda, and Kenya, as saying the top reason they do not access the Internet is the lack of digital skills and that a lack of knowledge of how to use the Internet is perceived as a larger hurdle than coverage or cost.

The results show the necessity of stakeholders in dealing with the needs of the illiterate population by creating awareness about the Internet and its benefits in an effort to help people embark on their digital literacy journey.

The Broadband Commission notes that, over recent years, governments, policymakers and regulators have made broadband a policy impera- tive, based on growing recognition of the impact of broadband on national goals.

Ericsson head of government and industry relations Shiletsi Makhofane believes that national broadband plans, along with local content devices; information and communication technology in key sectors, high performance networks, will go a long way in aiding a country’s uptake of mobile broadband.

The Broadband Commission shows the number of National Broadband Plans growing strongly since 2009, partly driven by the financial crisis, which spurred many governments to respond with stimulus funding for broadband.

Currently, some 140 countries have developed a national plan, strategy, project or policy to promote broadband, while a further 13 countries are planning to introduce such measures in the near future.

However, 43 countries still do not have any form of broadband plan, strategy or policy in place, with only a handful of countries in sub-Saharan Africa having completed efficient, comprehensive plans.

Makhofane says a global study is under way into broadband implementation plans with the aspiration of establishing benchmarks that will help stakeholders learn from national success stories.