In 2023 mobile broadband traffic around the world for the first time reached 1 zettabyte (ZB) (end-user Internet traffic). It is estimated that it will be close to 1.3 ZB in 2024. Fixed broadband traffic will reach 6 ZB in 2024, up from 5.1 ZB the previous year.
Given infrastructure availability and connection technology, data-heavy Internet use is mostly carried over fixed broadband networks. Nevertheless, since 2021 mobile broadband traffic has grown on average by 19.6 per cent annually, faster than the 15.2 per cent for fixed broadband traffic.
The average monthly mobile broadband traffic per subscription in high-income countries (16.2 GB) is roughly eight times that in low-income countries (2 GB). Put another way, an average user in a high-income country generates more traffic in just four days than a user in a low-income country does in a whole month.
Though smaller than across income groups, regional disparities are still striking. The average monthly traffic in Africa is 3.1 GB per subscription, less than a quarter of the world average (13.9 GB) or one-sixth that seen in the CIS (19.1 GB), for example.
Disparities are less pronounced for fixed broadband traffic. Monthly traffic per subscription is similar across low-income and middle-income economies (between 200 and 250 GB), about half that in high-income countries (435 GB). However, high-income countries have seen a faster deployment of fibre networks, which has contributed to widening the gap with the rest of the world.
In the LDCs, the average traffic per subscription for fixed and mobile broadband stood at merely 37 and 30 per cent of the global average, respectively. The SIDS stand out: the group includes not only Singapore, which has high fixed broadband penetration, but also LDCs, which rely mostly on mobile services, and has above-average fixed broadband traffic per subscription but below-average mobile broadband traffic.