Stories from Abroad

More than 80% of Canadians have access to fixed broadband networks, but for rural Canadians that figure drops to just 60%. Yet, this gap between who has broadband access and who doesn't is closing in rural areas at a rate nearly three times faster than in urban areas.

A growing body of work has identified a digital language divide: the disparity between languages in terms of digital content availability, accessibility, and technological support.

It takes a brave soul to call a recovery in European telecommunications. Yet there are a few, tentative signs that the struggling sector may be ringing in the changes. Providers of mobile telecommunications services have long been stuck in a value trap. Recently, however, there have been a few positive signals. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority approved Vodafone’s merger with Three UK without imposing the feared “structural” remedies. That’s good news for Vodafone itself.

SpaceX’s effort to put an additional 22,488 satellites into low-earth orbit is facing a formal objection from a Ukrainian-American nonprofit, which says it’s concerned about CEO Elon Musk’s “contacts with Russia and the alleged use of his Starlink system by Russian forces in Ukraine.” In a petition to deny and motion for stay filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) also cited negative 

For most people, the internet may be indispensable, but they take it for granted. Though it is sometimes described as the world’s biggest machine, few spare a thought for its physical core: the vast networks of cables spun across sea floors and continents, the cities of energy-hungry servers speeding along data. Until there is a problem. Any number of things can knock an undersea cable out of service. Landslides can do it. So can a ship dragging its anchor. There may be unintended damage from military skirmishes. And then there is sabotage, a growing concern.

This annual publication looks at what people in the UK are doing online, how they are served by online content providers and platforms, and their attitudes to and experiences of using the internet. In May 2024, UK adults spent an average of 4 hours 20 minutes a day online, across smartphones, tablets and computers.  Almost half (48%) of the time UK adults spend online is on services owned by Alphabet or Meta. Reddit was the fastest-growing large social media platform in the UK, reaching more than half of UK online adults by June 2024. Eighteen to 24-year-old TikTok and Snapchat visitors spe

Australia’s social media ban for children under the age of 16 will become law after passing the Senate, the upper house of Parliament, even as questions linger over how the new restrictions will be implemented. Under the new laws, which are scheduled to come into effect in about one year, children in Australia under the age of 16 will be banned from setting up accounts on popular social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for a week is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law—and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals. Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier—225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer—deliberately severed 

This paper aims to introduce the 'Subsidy Allocation Efficiencies' (SAE) metric as a practical tool for policymakers to evaluate subsidy programs for universal service provisioning. Using a qualitative case study approach, the paper investigates various subsidy allocation methods adopted by the Universal Service Fund, comparing them in terms of SAE. The SAE metric is validated by applying the ‘similarity index’ to Milgrom's optimal auction design.

Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure. Telecommunications company Telia Lithuania's monitoring systems could tell there was a cut due to the traffic disruption, and that the cause was likely physical damage to the cable itself. Another cable linking Finland and Germany was also disrupted, according to Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that runs the link.