Google got it wrong: The Internet won't be global by 2020

[Commentary] "For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected." Does Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman and former CEO of Google, regret his tweet, or was it merely a sales pitch for the Internet? Schmidt was wrong. Although he didn't flat-out say that everyone in the world would be online by 2020, it was implicit in his statement. Sadly, that's not going to happen.

In fact, Internet use in developing countries is unlikely to achieve the target of 50 percent until 2020 according to The Broadband Commission. Is the Internet at saturation point already? It may be getting more expensive to connect in the developing world thanks to stalled infrastructure projects, but the Internet is still growing fast. It's all down to mobile phones, the fastest growing technology in human history. There are now seven billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, with 95 percent of the globe now covered by a 2G signal.