Considering the current usage of online services throughout the world, it is astonishing to hear from the European Commission that 33% of Europeans have not accessed the internet yet.
This sounds even more astonishing as mobile internet now enables people to stay online with usb dongle all over the world at any point of time. However, this can be explained if we look at the section of people who do not access the internet. It is either old people or those who do not have sufficient resources. However, the good news is that the number of such people is going down every year, and it has seen a decline of close to 7% of the overall population in the last one year.
According to the European Commission report, while recession has badly hit other industries, the Information Technology sector is in a comparatively better position. People all over the world use the broadband internet in spite of recession, which may help in fostering economic growth.
EU Commissioner for Information, Society and Media, Viviane Reding, said that the digital communications industry is capable enough to generate huge productivity improvements in all sectors, and that the governments must make policies that help in further development of the sector so that more employment and income can be generated by it. These policies will have to make growth in the sector stable and sustainable.
