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Huge Jump in Internet Use by 2000, Experts Say
The number of internet uses has approximately doubled every year for the last 11 years and could reach 300 million by the end of 2000, some experts predict.
Start Date: 4/25/99
A report from Wired Online (www.wired.com) on April 8, 1999 cites a recent United Nations study which estimates that over 200 million users will be connected to the Internet by the year 2000. The figure was published in an annual economic and social survey of Asia. The same report estimated that about 30 million users in 140 countries were connected to the internet at the end of 1998.
Other analysts say the UN's figures greatly underestimate the current number of Net users. Sam Weerahandi, senior scientist at Telcordia Technologies -- a market research firm in Morristown, New Jersey that produces daily estimates of Internet growth -- says close to 183 million people are now online. Weerahandi calculated 66 million Internet users in Europe, 87 million in North America, and 30 million in Asia.
"Asia has the most potential to grow, but it is slowing down," he said. "Most households in North America and Europe have access already. It's still growing [there] also, but at a diminished rate."
Vint Cerf, chairman of the board of trustees for the Internet Society, speaking at a privacy conference on April 7, predicted 300 million people would be connected by the end of 2000, citing a report in USA Today. Cerf said that 150 million users are now connected worldwide, and he expects that figure to double by the end of 2000. The number of Internet connections has been doubling every year for the last 11 years, he said.
But for the Internet to keep growing, access to technology must be both affordable and unrestricted, Cerf said. Less than half of the world's people have ever made a telephone call. [GSReport thanks Remy Chevalier for sending us this story.]
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