Financial Times

In the days after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine, Elon Musk made the decision to support Kyiv. Fewer than 48 hours later, Musk’s commercial rocket and satellite business SpaceX dispatched a shipment of Starlink satellite kits to fortify the country’s internet network against Putin’s forces. Musk was commended by the west but his aid was viewed differently by China, a critical growth market for his business empire, where Tesla makes a quarter of its revenues.

The UK has nearly 5 million houses with more than three choices of ultrafast fibre-optic broadband, while 10 million homes do not have a single option, according to analysis that points to the inequality in internet infrastructure across Britain. While some parts of the country are benefiting from high internet speeds, others have been left behind, according to research conducted by data group Point Topic with the Financial Times. The government has pledged to bridge the digital divide and level up the economy by extending fast broadband to all homes.

Britain’s ability to roll out superfast broadband across the country is being slowed by the “tortuous” process of recruiting workers from the EU following Brexit, the head of BT’s networking business has warned. Clive Selley, chief executive of BT’s Openreach, the division leading the rollout of fibre optic networks to homes, said countries such as Portugal and Spain have plenty of people with the necessary skills to accelerate the delivery of superfast broadband. “They want the work, we want the skills and the Home Office have a process that is tortuous,” Selley said in an interview.