Stories from Abroad

The European Commission has recognized early on the disruptive potential of 5G and later 6G.

Worldwide, there is an ongoing policy and regulatory push to make very high-speed broadband available as widely as possible. Underlying the policy interventions to support higher speeds is an implicit assumption that higher speeds will enable different (and socially valuable) uses. Extensive data on usage published by the UK telecommunications regulator finds that the linkage between broadband speeds and traffic per line—allowing for demographic factors—shows that higher speed has a weak relationship to traffic.

Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2023 shows that 86% of UK households take fixed broadband. This report summarises our research to understand broadband performance. It is based on two main sources of data: data collected by SamKnows from volunteers who connect a hardware monitoring unit to their broadband router; and data provided to Ofcom by the UK’s four largest broadband providers. Superfast products accounted for 93% of all home broadband lines.

Google is launching new anti-censorship technology, Outline VPN, to increase access for internet users living under authoritarian regimes.

Key findings on mobile coverage and fixed broadband availability across the UK as of April and May 2023: 

In early 2020, as the coronavirus spread, schools around the world abruptly halted in-person education. To many governments and parents, moving classes online seemed the obvious stopgap solution. In the United States, school districts scrambled to secure digital devices for students. Almost overnight, videoconferencing software like Zoom became the main platform teachers used to deliver real-time instruction to students at home.

Vodafone’s announcement that it has formed a partnership with Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite (LEO) communications initiative, joins a growing list of operator tie-ups with satellite service providers to solve backhaul and rural connectivity challenges. Vodafone and its African Vodacom group plan to use Project Kuiper’s network to extend the reach of 4G and 5G services to more of their customers in Europe and Africa, serving areas that “may otherwi

Strategic rethinking of the policies that promote 5G development and deployment in Europe is needed, as they are crucial in determining the future impact of 5G and later 6G on the digital economy. Considering the current state of 5G deployment and insights that have emerged from the debate on 5G technological leadership, there is a need for a more effective and proactive policy from the European Union (EU) in this field.

In 2022, Kathmandu-based Bikram Shrestha of the Nepal Internet Foundation was introduced to Chhepal Dorjee Sherpa, a trekking guide and entrepreneur who grew up in Khunde, Nepal. Bikram had prior experience with community networks, and together the two set out to build “the highest community network in the world.” At the time Khunde and Khumjung had patchy mobile phone coverage, with two dozen households paying about 1,000 rupees ($7.55) per month for an unreliable ADSL connection.

Telecommunications executives are looking at booming broadband use largely driven by video. Streaming video is one of – if not the main reason – for the explosion in data use across networks in the past 10 years, and platforms like Netflix are some of the main culprits. That amount of streaming across the globe is leading to big infrastructure costs for internet and mobile broadband providers, at a time when customers are used to large or unlimited downloads at a low price and are unwilling to pay much more.