Life at the bottom of the global league of internet access

In Somalia, to be caught with a smartphone in the wrong place can mean death

• Exclusive: dramatic slowdown in global growth of internet access
• Almost 50% of the world is online. What about the other 50%?

Somalia is not a place for web addicts. Even in the capital, Mogadishu, coverage is patchy, expensive and unpredictable. Things are slightly better in the north, but further afield, and anywhere the al-Shabaab militant group holds sway, there is no internet at all.

All of which means that in the global league of internet access, Somalia is at the bottom, with fewer than 2% of its people regularly online.