Stories from Abroad

Internet freedom is increasingly imperiled by the tools and tactics of digital authoritarianism, which have spread rapidly around the globe. Repressive regimes, elected incumbents with authoritarian ambitions, and unscrupulous partisan operatives have exploited the unregulated spaces of social media platforms, converting them into instruments for political distortion and societal control.

It’s fair to say that a Council on Foreign Relations appearance by the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is out of the ordinary. But these are extraordinary times. We’re at a pivotal moment in the evolution of communications technology. Across America and around the world, private companies have begun rolling out the next generation of wireless technology—commonly known as 5G. For all the opportunities that 5G will unlock, it will also create new challenges. Chief among these is the main subject of my remarks: network security.

The keen interest by politicians, regulators, and competition authorities in international price rankings has sparked a series of management consultancies to produce regularly studies that purport to compare and rank prices for mobile wireless services across the world. These rankings, so they claim, are the Swiss Army knife of competition analysis. A country that ranks lower on a list is declared a laggard or noncompetitive and thus supposedly is in need of regulatory intervention. Such claims require scrutiny and further analysis.

IPTV is an important tool to change business structures and move beyond subscription-based business models for telecom operators. However, the level of IPTV penetration differs among operators, which might be closely related to individual operator's strategy for the broadband market and the regulatory environment. Controlling country-specific business environments, this study identifies the key factors influencing IPTV penetration rates.

Some governments avidly try to control online data, whether this is on social media, blogs, or both. And surprisingly, China only features in the top 10 for one category. India and Russia are well ahead, accounting for 19.86 and 19.75 percent of the overall number of removal requests (390,764), respectively. However, these two countries don’t always dominate the top spots across all channels. Turkey and the United States also put in a high number of requests, making up 9 percent and 6.91 percent of the overall requests received, respectively.

Better mobile phone coverage in the British countryside has moved a step closer after the government and the telecoms regulator backed an industry plan to share masts and build new towers in very remote areas. Mobile operators spent months thrashing out an agreement to allow access to each other’s masts in rural areas to improve patchy coverage, but it was contingent on Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, revising the rules of an impending sale of spectrum for 5G services. The regulator on Oct 25 confirmed the changes had been agreed.

Amid the NBA-China controversy, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said that the situation is a “disturbing lesson” on Chinese government leverage. “If the Chinese government has such leverage over NBA stars and the league itself, that raises the question, how else can they can export their censorship, their anti-Democratic values, and ultimately their control when it comes to even more important things like our 5G networks, the wireless networks of the future?” Chairman Pai said.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that European Union courts can demand Facebook actively monitor and delete illegal material such as hate speech. The court said there is nothing in EU current law stopping Facebook from searching and deleting duplicate posts of content that has been declared illegal. The court said the searches and deletion can be done in the EU but also worldwide should national courts demand it.

The House Communications Subcommittee considered a handful of bills Sept. 27 at the hearing "Legislating to Secure America's Wireless Future" -- the thrust of which were to protect 5G networks from foreign intruders looking to spy on the US, as well as to efficiently manage spectrum. Bills being considered at the hearing were: 

Internet shutdowns have become one of the defining tools of government repression in the 21st century in a growing number of countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, that are seeking to quash dissent. The shutdowns do more than stunt the democratic process.