https://medium.com/@i.haffke/the-battle-for-the-next-billion-internet-users-has-begun-76d68bafb7c0

Today, the world is more connected than ever. Soon, 5G will herald the next era of digitalization. While we are discussing trends such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and augmented reality, we tend to forget that there are still about four billion people on our planet who are unconnected, with the vast majority of those residing in developing and least developed countries (LDCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. As high mobile network penetration already prevails in these markets, mobile (as opposed to fixed) broadband services tend to be the prevalent form of access technology. However, mobile broadband coverage is still very limited in many regions and data plans as well as smartphones are often unaffordable for the local population. In addition, available internet content is often not relevant enough to local communities. Finally, digital illiteracy as well as gender discrepancies in internet adoption pose additional barriers.

The digital divide between the developed and the developing world is at risk of widening if broadband network deployment, price decline, and subsequently consumer adoption do not keep up with the required growth levels. 3G and 4G coverage is indeed expanding while data prices are on a downward trajectory, even in developing countries. But at the same time, the bar for what is considered a decent internet experience is constantly rising. Modern applications consume more data and require faster connection speeds and lower latency for an acceptable user experience, especially with video streaming projected to make up 75% of global data traffic. The fast pace of development of these factors puts developing countries at risk of falling further behind the developed world.