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 Worldwide, wireless networks reached the 2 billion subscriber mark at the end of 2005; industry analysts expect there will be more than 3 billion subscribers by 2010, with 80 percent of the growth in developing countries. Rapid growth is continuing: in India, for example, mobile companies were adding about 6 million new subscribers a month at the end of 2006.

Internet access has also expanded rapidly, more than quadrupling worldwide between 2000 and 2005, with the most rapid growth in the Middle East, North Africa, and East Asia. Nonetheless, penetration is only 67 users per 1,000 people in developing countries, compared with 258 mobile users per 1,000 people, and Internet usage remains concentrated in higher-income segments and urban areas.

Still a Digital Divide. Despite rapid growth rates, these data mean that in Africa, 90 percent of the population does not have access to a phone, and 98.5 percent does not have Internet access. In South Asia, the corresponding figures are 93 and 98 percent; in the Middle East and North Africa, 79.5 and 95 percent; in East Asia, 54 and 92.5 percent; in Latin America, 49.3 and 89.5 percent. Thus 10 percent penetration is the high-water mark for Internet access, with 2 to 5 percent more typical of Africa and South Asia. Phone access is better: roughly half the population in Latin America, nearly half in East Asia, and about a tenth of the population in Africa and South Asia has mobile phones. See Figure 5.1.