For billions of us, high-speed internet has gone from something that’s nice to have
to an essential part of modern life.
A fast connection is now so crucial that it’s seen as the fourth utility,
alongside water, gas and electricity.
It doesn’t just let us stream HD movies, enjoy lag-free gaming or, of course, watch
super awesome YouTube videos.
We are now reliant on the internet for all of our information, remote working, communicating
with friends, banking, shopping and, well, pretty much everything.
So, if it’s that important, how do we build the infrastructure that ensures everyone - and
we mean everyone - can get access to it?
If you thought human beings already spent too much time online then we’ve got news for you
– our digital dependence is only set to grow further.
More everyday items are becoming connected devices - from watches to washing machines
- and many of the emerging tech expected to transform society in the near future will
need high-speed networks too.
So, how will all this work when many are still stuck with low speeds, or no internet at all,
because of where they live?
What's be the best way to reach that fully connected world, and which countries or companies
are leading the way?
Well, there are a few ideas - some of them a bit radical - but full-fibre broadband
to every home is a goal that many nations are striving for -
largely because it's the most achievable.
Fibre-optic networks provide much faster speeds for homes and businesses compared to traditional
copper-based systems, which often rely on infrastructure from decades ago.
Full-fibre is where the entire connection between the telephone exchange and the home
or business comes through a fibre-optic line.
In many cases, only the line from the exchange to the on-street cabinet is fibre, with copper
still handling the last leg of the journey, limiting speeds.
Reliability is also better with fibre, as the cables are less susceptible to bad weather
and electromagnetic interference.
But getting fibre to every home and business is not easy.
Doing so requires digging trenches in urban and rural areas, laying new cable ducts where
needed and ensuring all the connections on the way to the end users are made.
While the work can be straightforward in some cases, especially where little needs to be
done to the existing infrastructure, covering an entire population is a massive challenge.
Yet some countries are managing it. Japan and South Korea have had near-total full-fibre
coverage for years.
Both of those nations have high population densities and the vast majority of people live
in urban areas - that's ideal for upgrading a lot of connections in one go.
They also started investing in fibre much sooner than most countries, so they’ve had
longer to work on it.
But it’s not all about laying down wires. For many, fast data to our phones and tablets
has become more important.
The rise of 3G, 4G and now 5G has kept us connected even on the move.
Because they don’t need to be hooked up to a building, mobile networks have also helped
connect rural communities and people in developing nations with little or no service.
Instead, local masts send signals to the user’s device.
Obviously, these still need to be connected up to the overall network, but it’s a lot
less effort than wiring up every home and business.
That’s still the ultimate aim in most of these places though, as wireless is not as
fast and reliable as fibre, and as we all know, mobile connections can be patchy.
So far, every new generation of mobile technology has led to incremental improvements, but 5G
is a huge leap forward.
As well as being up to 100 times faster than 4G, it is a key enabler for new and future
tech which will need high data capacities, ultra-low latency and extremely reliable connections.
That includes things like autonomous cars, VR, and even flying taxis.
But getting us all immediately upgraded to 5G is not as straightforward as it sounds.
Several countries are already up and running with 5G, but it could be a while before it’s
widespread - even in those places.
Not only does it mean retrofitting existing base stations with next generation kit;
5G requires a larger, denser network of towers to work.
You’ve then got to connect them all together with more fibre-optic cable.
A lot of wires, then, but that’s nothing compared to the masses of undersea cables
needed to bring high-speed internet to the world.
99% of global internet traffic travels through them, and there are now hundreds spread around
our oceans - laid by specially modified ships.
Many of these lines are provided by the tech giants like Google, which is set to build
a new cable running from the East Coast of the US down to Argentina,
stopping at Brazil and Uruguay on the way.
Although we’re not sure of the exact length, Firmina is set to be the world’s longest
cable when it finishes in 2023, capable of running from a single power source at one
end in case of connection issues along the route.
Another is 2Africa - a 37,000km-long cable being built by Facebook, connecting 23 countries
in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
When completed in 2024, it is expected to double the total internet capacity of the
entire African continent.
It's very impressive stuff, but to find arguably the most ambitious plan of all to bring
internet to the masses, you need to look skyward.
Constructed by SpaceX, the Starlink project is placing thousands of small satellites into
low Earth orbit, and beaming data down to transceiver dishes on the ground.
Because there’s no need for any real ground infrastructure, it’s seen as an ideal solution
for rural and remote communications that are still stuck in the digital dark age.
Around 1,500 Starlink satellites have already been launched, with a beta service now underway.
Near-global coverage is the aim by the end of 2021, and once all the satellites are up
- that’s more than 40,000 of them - Starlink hopes to be able to offer one gigabit per
second download speeds.
While we might not all need a connection that fast, all of this goes to show how far we’ve
come with digital infrastructure in just a few years.
Not long ago, if you didn’t live in an urbanised area of a major economy, you could forget
about high-speed Internet.
But now, with the progress seen in these areas, it seems we are closer than ever before to
a truly connected world.
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