Internet Usage Best/Worst
Countries With Poor (or Limited) Internet Access 2025
- “Users” are individuals who have used the internet from any location in the 3 months prior to being surveyed. The internet use could be via a computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, videogame console, digital TV, etc.
- Freedom House scores internet freedom using a scale ranging from 0 (least free) to 100 (most free), evaluating factors including obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights.
- Countries marked as ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House, whose low scores indicate severe restrictions on internet access, can be categorized as lacking the internet.
The internet seems so universally accessible that it is easy to overlook areas in the world that have very little or no access.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), about 2.6 billion people, or 33% of the global population, were still offline in 2023.
Only around 7% of people living in South Sudan used the internet in 2023 – a figure that has increased to 12.1% in 2024. While the percentage of internet users in Sudan is increasing, the country is still behind in expanding broadband internet connections.
About 90% of people living in Somalia and Burundi didn’t use the internet in 2023. While the situation in Burundi has barely changed since last year, Somalia has almost tripled its internet usership, as of mid-2024. Still, those who do have access to the internet experience low fixed-network broadband speeds of 7-9 Mbit/second.
Burundi, the poorest country in the world, has just over 1.5 million internet users for a population of about 13 million.
A person needs authorization from the North Korean government to use the internet, access to which is mostly restricted to the government and visitors.
Internet usage in the countries of Togo, Rwanda, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkmenistan, Comoros, and Niger is increasing, though in most regions it is still inaccessible.
While Pakistan is 7th in the world in terms of the number of internet users at 111 million, the country has imposed unannounced internet blackouts to quell civil unrest and stop protests.
Cuba uses the ALBA-1 cable to Venezuela to access the internet. The blackouts and lack of internet access are due to government regulations and sanctions from the United States that don’t allow an undersea cable from Florida to Cuba.
Vietnam is 13th in the world for the number of internet users, but the usage is limited. It’s illegal in Vietnam to post anything online that harms national security or “opposes the government,” which is a rather broad definition of what is not allowed.
76.4% of China’s population uses the internet regularly. The Chinese government has banned the use of certain websites, including Reddit, some Wikipedia entries, some Google services, and websites that the Communist Party deems spiritual pollution.
Most Belarus citizens have internet access, but it’s restricted. A website must register with the Belarus government or face being blocked.
