Over half of the world’s population — an estimated 4.3 billion people — now use the Internet, and 90 percent of all people are covered by at least basic data services. Some countries have very high levels of internet usage; the members of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of advanced economies, have 84 percent individuals using the internet. Some countries, such as Iceland or South Korea, count almost everyone as users. But what of the rest of the world? What holds back about half of the world’s population from using the internet?

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