Around half of the world’s entire population will be accessing the internet at least once a month by 2018, according to new estimates.

eMarketer has revealed that in three years time, somewhere around 3.6 billion people will be denizens of the web.

The earth’s entire population was just over 7.1 billion in 2013, so a healthy chunk of our planet will have access to all the latest cat memes.

What’s more, the research team also revealed the number of internet users worldwide would top 3 billion in 2015 for the first time ever.

This is an increase of around 6.2 per cent, bringing us up to a respectable 42.4 per cent of the total global population.

Monica Peart, Senior Forecasting Analyst at eMarketer, said: “ Inexpensive mobile phones and mobile broadband connections are driving internet access and usage in countries where fixed internet has been out of reach for consumers, whether that’s due to lack of infrastructure or affordability.”

“While highly developed nations are nearly saturated in terms of internet users, there’s significant room for growth in emerging markets,” she continued, adding “for example, India and Indonesia will each see double-digit growth in each year between now and 2018.”

Getting the entire world online is a pretty tough ask, with many areas simply deemed too remote or too poor for the necessary infrastructure to be put in place cheaply and promptly.

Fortunately there are a few schemes already underway that should revamp the grand internet roll-out and help the unconnected get online.

For starters, there’s Project Loon – Google’s wacky brainchild that looks to connect remote parts of the world with a network of floating balloons that beam signal around to create a sky-high Wi-Fi network.

There’s currently testing on-going in New Zealand, with trials kicking off in Queensland, Australia just next month.

Facebook has a similar project underway, albeit trading balloons for Zuckerberg-officiated drones that would be able to bring internet connectivity to the more remote corners of the world.

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Via: Telegraph

Deputy News & Features Editor Writer.