[news release] The cost of Internet services has inched downward across the globe in 2022, according to Facts and Figures, the annual worldwide overview on the state of digital connectivity from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic in March 2020, slightly more than half of the world’s citizens had access to the internet. Connectivity allowed many people to work, receive services, and socialize without physical contact—a key factor in limiting the virus’s spread. Did people with internet access, then, benefit from reduced exposure to COVID-19?
France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to come up with legislation that ensures Big Tech firms partly finance telecoms infrastructure in the bloc, a document showed on Monday.
There were 35.93 million domain names registered within China as of the end of 2021, up more than 4.5 million in 12 months, from 31.36 million, according to the English version of the 49th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development published in April.
Nearly 3 billion people – or 37% of the world’s population – have never used the internet, according to the United Nations, despite the Covid-19 pandemic driving people online.
The satellite Internet industry has taken off at great speed in the last year, as companies like SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon each work to build satellite-based networks consisting of thousands of small individual satellites. SpaceX has launched more than 1,000 of its Starlink high-speed Internet satellites to date and now has permission from the FCC to launch 12,000 satellites in the first phase of its deployment. While SpaceX has led the way, we are seeing OneWeb and Amazon follow at breakneck speed, as each of them strives to connect the unconnected parts of the world.
Improved Internet connectivity and skills have helped many countries to cope with the health and economic crisis from COVID-19. Yet the pandemic has raised the bar for the digital transition and underscores the need to close the digital divides that risk leaving some people and firms worse off than others in a post-COVID world, according to a new OECD report.
[news release] A new policy brief from ITU and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), finds that high costs for Internet access relative to income remain one of the main barriers to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) services worldwide. Taking income differences into account, a mobile broadband subscription with at least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of data costs around four times more in developing countries than in developed ones.
Satellites – once the poor relation of broadband providers, considered the slowest, most expensive option and a real last resort – have become the hot favourite in the race to connect the world in places land-based internet does not reach.
The Biden administration’s agenda, already focused on the coronavirus, will face immediate pressure to address a related tech issue: access to home broadband that has become essential to continuing work, school and other important activities during the pandemic.