The Great Recession has had no discernible effect on the spread on communications. The number of mobile phone subscriptions will rise above five billion this year, followed by broadband subscriptions leaping the one billion threshold.
"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services," said ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, "and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."