Measuring
the Information
Society Report
2016
Printed in Switzerland
Geneva, 2016
Internat onal
Telecommunicat on
Union
Place des Nat ons
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland
ISBN: 978-92-61-21431-9
9789261214319
40634
Measuring the Informaton
Society Report
2016
Internatonal Telecommunicaton Union
Place des Natons
CH-1211 Geneva Switzerland
Original language of publicaton: English
All rights reserved. No part of this publicaton may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmited in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
Internatonal Telecommunicaton Union.
ISBN:
978-92-61-21421-0 (paper version)
978-92-61-21431-9 (electronic version)
978-92-61-21581-1 (epub)
978-92-61-21591-0 (moby)
iiMeasuring the Informaton Society Report 2016
iii
It is my pleasure to present to you the latest
editon of the
Measuring the Informaton Society
Report
. This annual report presents a global and
regional overview of the latest developments
regarding informaton and communicaton
technologies (ICTs), based on internatonally
comparable data and agreed methodologies.
It aims to stmulate the ICT policy debate in
ITU Member States by providing an objectve
assessment of how countries have performed
in the feld of ICT and by highlightng areas that
need further improvement.
One of the core features of the Report is the
ICT Development Index (IDI). This year’s results
show that nearly all of the 175 countries covered
by the index improved their IDI values between
2015 and 2016. During the same period, stronger
improvements have been made on ICT use
than access, mainly as a result of strong growth in mobile-broadband uptake globally. This has allowed an
increasing number of people, in partcular from the developing world, to join the informaton society and
beneft from the many services and applicatons provided through the Internet.
This year, for the frst tme, the Report also shows countries’ rankings according to their improvement in IDI
value. The results show strong improvements in performance throughout the world; a number of middle-
income developing countries in partcular are reaping the benefts of more liberalized and compettve ICT
markets that encourage innovaton and ICT uptake across all sectors.
Despite these encouraging developments, we need to focus on the countries that are among the least
connected in the world. Urgent acton is required to address this persistent digital divide if we want
to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. For example, the Report shows that in some low-income countries, between 20 and 40
per cent of people stll do not own a mobile phone and that the gender gap in mobile phone ownership is
substantally higher.
This year’s Report takes a closer look at barriers to Internet uptake. New data show that while 84 per
cent of the world's people live in an area where mobile-broadband services are ofered, only 47 per cent
are actually using the Internet. While infrastructure deployment is crucial, high prices and other barriers
prevent people from entering the digital world.
The price of the service (and of the device) remains a critcal determinant for whether people make use of
ICTs. I am pleased to see that, globally, the prices for fxed and mobile communicaton services contnued to
fall over the past year. The reducton in mobile-broadband prices is partcularly pleasing, as it leads not only
to more people being connected to the Internet but also to more intense Internet usage among those who
are already online.
The availability and afordability of high-speed fxed-broadband services nevertheless remain a challenge in
the majority of low-income countries. In the world’s least developed countries, a fxed-broadband plan with
a minimum of 1GB of data per month stll corresponds, on average, to over 60 per cent of GNI per capita.
In additon, in those least developed countries where the service is ofered, speed and quality are usually
lower than in developed countries. This is a constraint not only for the domestc business sector but also in
Measuring the Informaton Society Report 2016
Foreword
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