About 354 million people in 51 countries around the world have access to gigabit network speeds, or about 5% of the overall global population, according to new data from Viavi Solutions. The United States is the country with the highest number of people who have gigabit access.
Viavi’s Gigabit Monitor report found that the U.S. has gigabit access available to about 68.5 million people, an increase of 4 million since August of 2018. The company’s Gigabit Monitor online tool is based on publicly available information.
However, despite the rise in access to the fastest-available networks, there is still an enormous gap in basic connectivity availability around the world.
“While the status of one in twenty [people] having access to gigabit internet shows significant global
progress, this contrasts starkly with the estimated 50 percent of the global population that still
does not have any form of internet access,” Viavi added.
South Korea was in second place last year, but has now been surpassed by China’s gigabit access, where 61.5 million people now have gigabit internet available: a “huge leap of 41 million since August of last year,” Viavi noted, even though that number only reflects 4.5% of China’s population. South Korea is currently in the third place, with 46.9 million people having access to gigabit network speeds. The top five countries were rounded out by Spain (30.1 million) and Canada (15.9 million).
Viavi noted that Singapore leads in terms of coverage as a percentage of population, with gigabit network speeds available to 95% of the people in the small nation. Comparatively, about 21% of the U.S. population has access to gigabit networks.
Viavi also found that while overall access numbers are growing, gigabit coverage isn’t necessarily spreading from country to country. In the last 12 months, only two countries which did not have gigabit internet speeds have added them: Malaysia and Bahrain. Last year, eight countries brought gigabit internet online for the first time.
5G is also having an influence on the state of gigabit connectivity, with cellular networks gaining a larger share as providers of gigabit speeds compared to fiber — although fiber still provides the vast majority of gigabit access, nearly 90%, with cellular providing less than 2%. Viavi expects wireless gigabit access to continue in the next two years as 5G networks expand. But, the company added, fiber is still a critical element of gigabit networks, even for cellular gigabit networks, which typically rely on fiber for backhaul.
“Not surprisingly, we are seeing a gradual shift away from wired gigabit internet provision toward wireless technologies. As commercial 5G networks are rolled out in greater numbers, the pace of this transition will escalate radically and soon reach a tipping point,” said Sameh Yamany, Viavi’s CTO. “Yet even with the global rise of 5G networks, the importance of testing and troubleshooting fiber will remain paramount as mobile operators deploy more and more fiber-based network infrastructure.”
