Since urban areas are more densely populated and economically attractive, they are usually prioritized when new infrastructure is deployed. As a result, 70 per cent of people living in urban areas worldwide have access to a 5G network, compared with 45 per cent of those in rural areas, a gap of 25 percentage points.
In high-income countries, 90 per cent of the urban population is covered by 5G, compared with 72 per cent of the rural population. In low-income countries, 5G reaches only 10 per cent of the urban population and is virtually unavailable in rural areas.
Older technologies are more widely available. 4G networks cover 99 per cent of the urban population worldwide, but coverage drops to 87 per cent in rural areas. However, these global averages conceal substantial disparities, with only 54 per cent of the rural population in low-income countries covered by 4G.
There are still parts of the world where mobile networks are either unavailable or limited to 2G. These areas are exclusively rural, with the share of the affected population ranging from 2 per cent in rural Europe, to 21 per cent in rural Africa. In LDCs, 19 per cent of the rural population remains without mobile broadband coverage (3G or better), while in LLDCs the share is 13 per cent. The highest proportion is found in rural areas of SIDS, where 34 per cent of the population lacks mobile broadband access.