Online Population now Half Billion

mattvd writes "According to CNN, the number of people with Web access at home by the end of 2001 was 498 million." Not surprisingly, Asia is growing the fastest. It's amazing that in only 10 years or so, the net has exploded so far, so fast, and now touches 10% of the earths population.

Comments

am from india....

[univgeek]

And although systems are expensive, and most college students do not have computers/internet access from home, there are hundreds of internet cafes in each city. The rate for access is around 25c to 50c an hour. They also allow gaming, voice chat etc. Since the cost of local and international long distance is quite high in India (cross-subsidizing the rural areas) a lot of illegal (currently) voice chat takes place in the browsing cafes.

Most students in the cities have email and access the net quite regularly, if only for gaming or chat through these cyber-cafes and not at home. Also gives privacy ;-)....

And once the government legalises VoIP there is definitely going to be a huge boom in the use of the cyber-cafes.

I am pretty sure that this must be the case in most developing economies. Of course like this article says it needs to become a productivity tool.