Drones and balloons could expand net access, say Facebook and Google

When you open an app, surf the web or send an email, do you think about how lucky you are? You probably don't. Internet access is cheap, fast and widespread. Living the digital life in the city is painless, especially in Hong Kong, which boasts the fastest broadband speeds in the world.

Urbanites are prone to saying that technology is about freedom, and that the internet is about democracy. The UN has even declared that internet access is a basic human right. However, across much of the planet it is still a luxury, as internet costs are exorbitant, access is painfully slow and mobile signals drop out.

The internet isn't finished. The tech industry loves to talk about "the next billion" people who are expected to go online for the first time in the next couple of years, primarily in rapidly developing countries such as Brazil, India and China, and mostly via mobile phone. It's being hailed as a step-change, a chance for global commerce to grow, and a way of spreading freedom ever wider. For comparison, this group of internet users' collective purchasing power will put it on par with the world's 10th-largest economy, bigger than Russia, India or South Korea.

But even if it happens, that leaves about four billion people offline. It gets worse: the internet's reach among new users is stalling, with broadband uptake stagnating in the least developed countries, and prices rising. Fewer than a third of the people in the world's poorest countries ever use the internet.

"The infrastructure just isn't in place to bring those parts of the world online, and traditional approaches like fibre optic cable networks just aren't going to do the trick," says Liam Fisher, creative lead at London-based digital marketing agency Builtvisible, which specialises in global internet access.

"The cable network is dependent on operators deciding to install new, very expensive cables in remote areas, and they're going to do that only if it makes financial sense."