The speed of access to the network in different parts of the world can vary hundreds of times. We talk about projects that seek to deliver high-speed Internet to remote regions.
We will also talk about how access to the network is regulated in Asia and the Middle East.
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Places with slow internet - they still exist
There are places on the planet where the speed of access to the network is much lower than comfortable. For example, in the English village of Trimley-Saint-Martin, the content download speed is approximately 0,68 Mbps. Things are even worse in Bamferlong (Gloucestershire) - there is an average Internet speed only 0,14 Mbps. Of course, in developed countries, such problems are observed only in sparsely populated areas. Similar "reduced speed" zones can be found in , and even .
But there are entire states for which slow Internet is the norm. The country with the slowest internet today Yemen. There, the average download speed is 0,38 Mbps - users spend more than 5 hours downloading a 30-gigabyte file. Also in the list of countries with slow internet Turkmenistan, Syria and Paraguay. Not the best way things are on the African continent. How Quartz, Madagascar is the only country in Africa with download speeds over 10 Mbps.
A couple of materials from our blog on Habré:
The quality of communication is one of the determining factors influencing the socio-economic state of the country. In The Telegraph that slow internet often forces young people to leave rural areas. Another example is in Lagos (the largest city in Nigeria) new technological IT ecosystem. And network connectivity problems can lead to the loss of developers and potential customers. Interestingly, the growth in the number of Internet users in Africa is only 10% international trade by about half a percent. Therefore, today projects are actively developing, the task of which is to deliver the Internet even to the most remote corners of the globe.
Who lays networks in hard-to-reach regions
In areas where few people live, investments in infrastructure take longer to pay off than in large cities. For example, in Singapore, where SpeedTest index, world's fastest internet, population density 7,3 thousand people per sq. kilometer. The development of IT infrastructure here looks much more interesting than in small villages in Africa. But despite this, such projects are still developing.
For example, Loon is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. — provide African countries with access to the network using balloons. They telecommunications equipment to a height of 20 kilometers and communication area of 5 sq. kilometers. Midsummer loon to conduct commercial tests in Kenya.
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There are examples from other parts of the world. In Alaska, mountain ranges, fishing and permafrost make it difficult to lay cables. Therefore, two years ago, the American operator General Communication (GCI) there radio relay () network with a length of several thousand kilometers. It covers the southwestern part of the state. Engineers have built more than a hundred towers with microwave transceivers, which provide Internet access for 45 thousand people.
How networks are regulated in different countries
Recently, many media often write about the regulation of the Internet and the laws that are adopted in the West and in Europe. However, bills worth paying attention to appear in Asia and the Middle East. For example, a couple of years ago in India Law "On temporary suspension of telecommunications services". The law has already been tested in practice - in 2017 it caused interruptions in the Internet connection in the states of Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, as well as West Bengal and Maharashtra.
Similar law in China since 2015. It also allows you to restrict internet access locally for national security reasons. Similar rules apply in и - there they “turn off” the Internet during school exams.
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There are also bills that relate to the operation of individual Internet services. Two years ago, the Chinese government local providers and telecommunications companies to block traffic through VPN services that have not been officially registered.
Australia passed a bill that messengers to use end-to-end encryption. A number of Western countries - in particular, the UK and the USA - are already looking at the experience of Australian colleagues and promote a similar bill. Whether they succeed in anything remains to be seen in the near future.
Additional reading on the topic from the corporate blog:
Source: habr.com