The number of online users is set to grow 45 per cent to 2.2 billion users in 2013, according to analyst Forrester Research.

In a report titled Global Online Population Forecast, 2008 To 2013, Forrester says the engine of growth for this increase is Asia, especially since 43 per cent of the world’s population will live in the region by 2013.

The top five online nations today are the US, China, Japan, Brazil and Germany. But by 2013 Forrester predicts that China will have more people online than anywhere else. The US will drop to second and India will displace Japan and Brazil, to have the third largest online population.

In the UK, the number of internet users will grow from 41.3 million (69 per cent of the population) to 48.7 million (81 per cent) in 2013.

The area of fastest growth in internet users will be the Middle East and Africa, which currently has eight per cent of the global total, but by 2013 will have 13 per cent.

Online user growth rates in the US, Western Europe, and the major industrialised nations in Asia Pacific such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, will slow to between one and three per cent.

Such growth rates will inevitably pose the question of whether network infrastructure rollout can cope with the increase over the five-year period. But perhaps a bigger threat would be if the rest of the world wanted a more independent overseer than the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is currently controlled by the US.

Speaking for the European Union recently, Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said: "A moment of truth will come on 30 September this year, when the current agreement between ICANN and the US government expires. This opens the door for the full privatisation of ICANN."

Some experts have warned that this threat could lead to the breakup of the global internet into a collection of local subnets.