Stories from Abroad

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is the largest public infrastructure project in the history of Australia. The goal of the NBN is to provide Australians with broadband internet access by using a mix of technologies, ranging from fibre and hybrid fibre-coaxial to fixed wireless and satellite platforms. Although the NBN is a public project, one of the more vexing aspects of its evolution is its lack of data transparency. There is virtually no information on platform use or footprint distribution throughout the country.

Broadband is seen as a vector of economic growth and social development. In the developing world, mobile technologies are widely adopted and mobile broadband is progressively rolled-out with high expectations on its impact on the countries’ development. We highlight what the determinants of mobile broadband use are in four Sub-Saharan countries. Using micro-level data coming from household surveys over 5 years, from 2013 to 2017, we show that SIM card ownership and being part of an online social community has a strong positive impact on mobile broadband use.

In August 2019, India’s government revoked Kashmir’s special autonomous status and locked down the region, which has a population of around 8 million. The lockdown was followed by the democratic world’s longest internet shutdown, which was partially lifted on Jan. 25 when authorities restored access to 2G internet. But the denial of high-speed internet still prevents people from using banking apps, paying their bills, and accessing services—even forcing some out of their homes.

Trump administration officials sought to revoke federal licenses used by China Telecom to do business in the US as part of a broader campaign to curb global Chinese technology interests on national security grounds. A collection of federal agencies led by the Department of Justice and including the departments of Defense and Homeland Security asked the Federal Communications Commission to permanently revoke licenses the Chinese internet service provider’s US subsidiary has used since 2007 to act as a “common carrier” connecting domestic and overseas networks.

People in the United States and around the world are turning to the internet to do their work and stay connected with others as the COVID-19 outbreak forces people to stay home and away from the office and crowds. A median of 77% across 34 countries use the internet at least occasionally or own an internet-enabled smartphone, according to a spring 2019 Pew Research Center survey. But there are stark digital divides. Younger people, those with higher incomes and those in wealthier countries are more likely to be digital technology users.

China has forced local staff to quit their jobs at a number of US media organisations operating in the country, dealing another blow to news groups caught in a diplomatic stand-off between Beijing and Washington. Apparently at least five Chinese citizens working for the New York Times and Voice of America have been fired this week by the Beijing Service Bureau for Diplomatic Missions.

In light of the growing disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the monitors for freedom of expression and freedom of the media for the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, and the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe issued the following joint statement:

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will expel American journalists working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

For all of China’s economic advancements in recent decades, the rudiments of connected life — capable smartphones, reliable internet — remain out of reach for large segments of the population.

While quarantined in her Wuhan apartment for days on end, the woman who calls herself “Sister Ma” suddenly found herself blocked from her account on WeChat, a platform used by more than 1 billion people in China. Without WeChat, she was cut off from communication with friends and family, the ability to order critical supplies, and contact with her children’s school. “My life is falling apart,” she wrote on a now-deleted but archived message on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.