By Patricia Fusco There is no doubt that America Online Inc. is the largest Internet community in the U.S., providing content through outsourcing services to some 20 million subscribers. Unfortunately, determining who's No. 2 and No. 3 isn't nearly as easy. According to NUA Ltd. of Ireland, the art of estimating how many Internet users are online throughout the world is an inexact science at best.
Surveys abound, using all sorts of measurement parameters.
According to their September 1999 assimilation of information, NUA contends there are 201 million Internet users in the world. NUA also reports that 112.4 million users reside in the U.S. and Canada. Translated, more than 56 percent of the global online community resides in North America. Nick Christenson, an independent Internet researcher, has been tracking the size of ISPs since the summer of 1998. He said one of the tasks he had to accomplish for Sendmail Inc. was to determine which Mail Transfer Agent was being used by the largest ISPs.