Financial Times

As many as 2 billion mobile phone owners around the world will be unable to use the smartphone-based system proposed by Apple and Google to track whether they have come into contact with people infected with the coronavirus, industry researchers estimate. The figure includes many poorer and older people — who are also among the most vulnerable to Covid-19 — demonstrating a “digital divide” within a system that the two tech firms have designed to reach the largest possible number of people while also protecting individuals’ privacy.

The internet’s surge protectors have just survived a major convulsion. Hundreds of millions of people have suddenly found themselves working — and movie-watching, game-playing and video-calling — from home throughout the day. The result, according to Matthew Prince, head of internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, has been a spike in demand that would have brought any other public utility to its knees. His company’s network has seen demand rise more than 50 per cent — the kind of spike that “would be a disaster” in a sewer system or electric grid, he said.

Even before the pandemic, rural broadband had become a simmering political issue, an acute example of being left behind which some Democrats were using to prise rural voters away from President Donald Trump. It is a subject that resonates from congressional districts in upstate New York to presidential swing states such as Iowa. With the virus spreading rapidly beyond cities into rural counties, poor access to broadband has exploded into a major Congressional row, as politicians tussle over billions of dollars’ worth of stimulus money.