Internet access

By 2014, 41 percent of the world's population had access,[3] broadband was almost ubiquitous worldwide, and global average connection speeds exceeded one megabit per second.

[16][17] The laser, originally demonstrated by Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow in 1960, was adopted for MOS light-wave systems around 1980, which led to exponential growth of Internet bandwidth.

The core of these broadband Internet technologies are complementary MOS (CMOS) digital circuits,[20][21] the speed capabilities of which were extended with innovative design techniques.

Fiber-optic communication, while only recently being used in premises and to the curb schemes, has played a crucial role in enabling broadband Internet access by making transmission of information at very high data rates over longer distances much more cost-effective than copper wire technology.

A Wi-Fi hotspot need not be limited to a confined location since multiple ones combined can cover a whole campus or park, or even an entire city can be enabled.

[29] A 2006 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report defined broadband as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s.

[35] Physical link quality can vary with distance and for wireless access with terrain, weather, building construction, antenna placement, and interference from other radio sources.

However, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and high-quality streaming video can require high data-rates for extended periods, which violates these assumptions and can cause a service to become oversubscribed, resulting in congestion and poor performance.

Typically, dial-up connections do not exceed a speed of 56 kbit/s, as they are primarily made using modems that operate at a maximum data rate of 56 kbit/s downstream (towards the end user) and 34 or 48 kbit/s upstream (toward the global Internet).

T-carrier lines require special termination equipment such as Data service units[51][52][53] that may be separate from or integrated into a router or switch and which may be purchased or leased from an ISP.

[63] VDSL is capable of supporting applications such as high-definition television, as well as telephone services (voice over IP) and general Internet access, over a single physical connection.

[65] Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is one member of the Fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) family that includes Fiber-to-the-building or basement (FTTB), Fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), Fiber-to-the-desk (FTTD), Fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC), and Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN).

[71] In 2010, Australia began rolling out its National Broadband Network across the country using fiber-optic cables to 93 percent of Australian homes, schools, and businesses.

[77] Because of the extensive power line infrastructure already in place, this technology can provide people in rural and low population areas access to the Internet with little cost in terms of new transmission equipment, cables, or wires.

Customer LANs are typically connected to an ATM switch or a Frame Relay node using leased lines at a wide range of data rates.

[80][81] While still widely used, with the advent of Ethernet over optical fiber, MPLS, VPNs and broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, ATM and Frame Relay no longer play the prominent role they once did.

Long latencies negatively affect some applications that require real-time response, particularly online games, voice over IP, and remote control devices.

WiMax offers a metropolitan area network with a signal radius of about 50 km (30 miles), far surpassing the 30-metre (100-foot) wireless range of a conventional Wi-Fi LAN.

By focusing the radio signal using a directional antenna (where allowed by regulations), 802.11 can operate reliably over a distance of many km(miles), although the technology's line-of-sight requirements hamper connectivity in areas with hilly or heavily foliated terrain.

If the service provider holds the necessary spectrum license, it could also reconfigure various brands of off the shelf Wi-Fi hardware to operate on its own band instead of the crowded unlicensed ones.

Using higher frequencies carries various advantages: Proprietary technologies like Motorola Canopy & Expedience can be used by a WISP to offer wireless access to rural and other markets that are hard to reach using Wi-Fi or WiMAX.

In some regions, notably in rural areas, the length of the copper lines makes it difficult for network operators to provide high-bandwidth services.

Innovation continues in the area to this day; for example, AWS has recently announced Snowball, and bulk data processing is also done in a similar fashion by many research institutes and government agencies.

[117] Several of the 67 principles adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society convened by the United Nations in Geneva in 2003, directly address the digital divide.

The Global Gateway, the EU's initiative to assist infrastructure development throughout the world, plans to raise €300 billion for connectivity projects, including those in the digital sector, between 2021 and 2027.

[132] With market saturation, growth in the number of Internet users is slowing in industrialized countries, but continues in Asia,[133] Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

[146] The Canadian Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative public private partnership is the first program in North America to guarantee access to "100% of civic addresses" in a region.

After lengthy negotiations between governments, businesses and civil society representatives the WSIS Declaration of Principles was adopted reaffirming the importance of the Information Society to maintaining and strengthening human rights:[127] [158] The WSIS Declaration of Principles makes specific reference to the importance of the right to freedom of expression in the "Information Society" in stating: A poll of 27,973 adults in 26 countries, including 14,306 Internet users,[159] conducted for the BBC World Service between 30 November 2009 and 7 February 2010 found that almost four in five Internet users and non-users around the world felt that access to the Internet was a fundamental right.

[168][169] In April 2017, a recent attempt to compromise net neutrality in the United States is being considered by the newly appointed FCC chairman, Ajit Varadaraj Pai.

[173] Of those unreachable subnets, 73% were disrupted for four weeks or longer and 57% were at "network edges were important emergency organizations such as hospitals and government agencies are mostly located".