Data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) suggest that global Internet bandwidth expanded in 2021 due to a 'COVID connectivity boost'. However, the world's poorest are still being left far behind.
An estimated 37 per cent of the world's population or 2.9 billion people have still never used the Internet.
The ITU, which is the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs), also revealed strong global growth in Internet use, with the estimated number of people who have used the Internet surging to 4.9 billion in 2021, from an estimated 4.1 billion in 2019.
Google, Facebook and Yahoo have flipped the switch to the new Internet addressing system, while ISPs such as Japan’s KDDI and India’s HNS will permanently enable IPv6 for a significant portion of their residential wireline subscribers. Home networking equipment manufacturers will also turn on IPv6 by default in home router products.
Read more: Internet opens doors to trillions more Net addresses with IPv6
Read more: US-Behörde will Internet aus der Steckdose fördern