It’s the same old problem — a report from Internet.org and Opera Software reveals that the high cost of data is still the obstacle to generating higher Internet access in developing countries.
Internet.org is a non-profit organisation founded by the likes of Facebook, Opera Software, Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Nokia.
The report was prepared using data gathered by Opera Software in the eight years since the launch of its Opera Mini mobile browser. “Mobile browsers are important because many people in developing countries access the Internet primarily through mobile devices,” according to TechCrunch.
In developing countries, charges for mobile data are still prohibitively high compared with what’s on offer in developed countries. The high cost also ends up affecting the developers of apps.
Game developers in China, for example, have to compress and string the packages to be under 1MB, which inevitably ends up sacrificing certain high-definition graphics and features.
Close to three billion people use the Internet across their mobile and desktop devices, with Asia and Pacific regions representing 45 per cent, the Arab world another 5 per cent, while Europe and the Americas make up 16 and 22 per cent respectively.
