news · 2025
Internet Poverty Index — Annual Update
By World Data Lab × Internet Society Foundation
Our annual update on the Internet Poverty Index, created with the Internet Society Foundation, with new global country-level data on internet poverty.
Affordable, meaningful internet access is increasingly a precondition for participation in modern economic and civic life — yet roughly one-third of humanity remains in some form of internet poverty.
The Internet Poverty Index, developed by World Data Lab and the Internet Society Foundation, measures the share of a country's population that cannot afford a minimum bundle of mobile data needed for basic online activity. The annual update includes new country-level breakdowns, regional trend lines and methodology notes.
We cover changes in affordability since the previous release, the relationship between internet poverty and gender, and how policy levers — from spectrum allocation to public access points — show up in the data.
