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General Internet Use Up, But What About Mobile Internet Usage?

Thomas Claburn reported on a study that says Internet use in January 2007 was 10% higher than January 2006. Most of the growth came from emerging market regions such as China and India, but the study didn't say anything about what percentage of new Internet users are experiencing the Web only through mobile phones.

It's not all that hard to envision. In many areas of the world there simply is no wired Internet to speak of. Cable, DSL, fiber-to-the-home, T1 lines? Forget about it. Teledensity in India, for example, is still only 17%. That means 83% of people living in India don't have regular access to a telephone line, let alone the Internet. For many inhabitants of emerging markets such as India, Southeast Asia, and portions of the African continent, the mobile Internet will likely be the first Internet they ever experience.

Wireless telecommunications will suddenly become available where once there was no telephone at all. Most of the newer networks built, even those in emerging markets, will likely be 2.5G EDGE or higher, and will enable the inhabitants of those regions to jump on the mobile Web with even the most rudimentary handsets. I, for one, can't imagine how life-changing that will be for people who've never logged onto the Internet from a desktop computer.

We're hardly just getting used to the idea of mobile Internet here in the U.S., where overall Internet usage rates just over 51% with 153.4 million users. Though mobile Internet usage is past the early adopter phase here in the U.S., it's far from being mainstream. The browsers on many Web-enabled phones go unused (much to the irritation of the network operators, I bet).

Not surprisingly, the countries who spent the most time online were the U.S., South Korea, Israel, and Canada, all with monthly surfing time of 31.6, 34, 37.4, and 39.6 hours, respectively. If and when I see any studies that say how long we spend surfing through mobile platforms, you'll be the first to hear about it.

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