Increasing Broadband Internet Penetration
In the OIC Member Countries
47
Country Coverage (%) 32. Latvia 93.10
33. New Zealand 93.00
34. Bulgaria 92.50
35. Australia 92.00
36. Iceland 92.00
37. Mexico 92.00
38. Romania 90.00
39. Slovenia 88.70
40. Poland 87.60
41. Estonia 87.30
42. Ecuador 87.00
43. Slovakia 85.30
44. Bolivia 41.37
Source: International telecommunications Union; Telecom Advisory Services analysisAs table 12 indicates, there are six countries with a fixed broadband supply gap of more than
10%, and eleven countries with supply gap ranging between 5% and 10%. As expected, data in
this table is biased towards countries with extensive coverage. Therefore, it is reasonable to
assume that a large portion of the countries that do not report fixed broadband coverage
exhibit a supply gap in excess of 10%. Moving now to mobile broadband coverage, it is
important to differentiate between technologies. As explained in chapter II, 2G technology is
not suited for mobile broadband, while 3G has significant service quality deficiencies. Table 13
presents mobile broadband coverage, both for 3G and 4G.
Table 13: Mobile broadband (3G) Coverage (by region) (as percent of population) (2015)
Regions 3G Coverage ( % ) 4G Coverage (%) North America 99.81 99.24
OECD Countries 97.76 89.98
Western Europe 98.43 89.49
Eastern Europe 86.14 62.69
Latin America 87.65 55.57
Africa 88.86 47.86
Asia-Pacific 63.65 36.95
Sources: International Telecommunications Union; Telecom Advisory Services analysisThe limitations in 4G coverage are fairly apparent in table 13. With the exception of developed
regions (North America and Western Europe, or the community of OECD states) the rest of the
world has serious coverage limitations. Considering that mobile broadband is more suited to
address Internet connectivity in the emerging world, the supply gap in 4G represents a critical
barrier to be overcome.
Broadband demand gapAs mentioned above, the demand gap is defined as the difference between either households
or individuals that could gain access to broadband but do not acquire the service. This is not a
statistic that is typically being tracked by either regulators or made public by operators.
Considering the data on coverage and adoption presented above, the demand gap for fixed and
Coverage > 95% Coverage 95%-90% Coverage <90%
Coverage > 90% Coverage 90%-80% Coverage <80%