Papua New Guinea’s Internet Access Crisis: Sky-High Costs, Bold Plans, and a Digital Divide
Key Facts Overview: A Nation Still Largely Offline Papua New Guinea (PNG) faces an uphill battle in bringing internet access to its population, which is dispersed across difficult terrain and hundreds of islands. General internet penetration remains very low – only about 24.1% of the population were internet users at the start of 2025 datareportal.com datareportal.com. In other words, roughly three out of every four Papua New Guineans have never been online. This rate is starkly below the global average and even lags behind many neighboring Pacific Island countries. The total number of internet users was estimated at 2.57 million
