Connectivity After the Pandemic

Thoughts about technology that is inclusive, trusted, and creates a more sustainable world

These posts represent my personal views on the future of the digital economy powered by the cloud and artificial intelligence. Unless otherwise indicated, they do not represent the official views of Microsoft.

No society in human history has been more connected than our own. Everyone knew this before the pandemic hit. By late 2019 some 4.33 billion people in the world had Internet access, about 57% of the world’s population. 3.9 billion of them had a mobile connection. That means that 51% of the people on the planet were walking around with an Internet-connected phone even before the coronavirus arrived. And since then the number has gone up. A new estimate puts the number of people with Internet access in April 2020 at 4.57 billion. Of course, we have to allow for a margin of error in such estimates. But it appears that during the first quarter of 2020 nearly a quarter of a billion new users gained Internet access.

We all understand why Internet access is more important now than ever. Online interactions are going to play a much bigger part in our future work and personal lives than anyone imagined even three months ago. Telework, telemedicine, distance learning, ecommerce, online gaming, video streaming, family videoconferences—these are the activities, both essential and trivial, that have boomed during the pandemic. And let’s not forget the more routine and less bandwidth-hungry but still indispensable daily Internet uses such as checking social media and reading the news.

In short, having a good Internet connection—one that is reliable, affordable, and fast enough to be fit for the purposes listed above—is more important than ever. This instantly raises the question: what are the world’s governments and policymakers doing to ensure that this access is widely available and equitably distributed to all?

Billions of people already have Internet access, but there are still billions who do not. And for those who have access, it is often painfully slow. According to the highly respected non-profit research institute Our World in Data, less than 15% of the world’s population was able in 2017 to connect to the Internet at a speed greater than 256 Kbits per second. For those of you too young remember the bad old days of dial-up Internet connections, 256 kilobits is less than the amount of data occupied by a tiny thumbnail image that might appear in a social media post or tweet. The World Economic Forum reports that unequal Internet access is a problem even in rich countries like the US, where 21 million people, mostly in rural areas, have no high-speed connection.

For a version of this chart customizable by country, see: Our World in Data

Governments all over the world have been busy launching massive economic stimulus programs to help their countries recover from the damage wrought by the pandemic. The immediate focus of these programs is naturally on public health, and then on jobs, and then on helping companies that provide vital goods and services to recover. But governments will soon need to think about longer-term priorities. Expanding and improving the network infrastructures that allow people to access the Internet should be at the top of the list. This also includes making sure that everyone has sufficient bandwidth, even those with low incomes or living in rural areas.

How well is the world doing in meeting the need for good connectivity? Unfortunately, current signs are mixed. While China and the United States are planning to accelerate investment in improved network infrastructure, other countries—in particular in the European Union—appear to be delaying projects. I’ll illustrate this trend by taking a brief look in the following paragraphs at the status of planned investments in the next generation of cellular networks known as 5G.

5G, which takes its name from the fact that it is based on the 5th generation of international standards for cell networks, promises Internet connections that are not only faster (more bits per second) and denser (more connections per square kilometer) but also much lower in latency (shorter response times). In addition to speeding existing Internet applications, 5G is expected to enable many new applications that will make the billions of large and small devices that surround us much more intelligent. Always-connected cars (with or without drivers) will interact in real-time with other cars and road networks, while billions of industrial devices in factories and cities and on farms, which until now were mute and isolated, will become parts of highly connected systems that continually adapt their behavior to changing circumstances. And 5G is not just for mobile or industrial applications. It will also bring fixed high-speed Internet to homes and other places without the need for physical cables. In countries such as the United States where the government has liberated sufficient spectrum, private 5G may even replace WiFi in large offices and factories.

5G investment right now is at a critical point. Deployment has begun in Asia, North America, and Europe, but in many countries, it is still at a very early stage where it can easily be disrupted by economic shocks or policy hesitations.

There is little doubt that China is the world’s leader in 5G. This country already had the world’s most aggressive schedule for 5G deployment before the pandemic, reaching even into remote rural areas. Now Beijing has decided to step up investment in 5G as part of its economic recovery program.

While the United States lags behind China in 5G deployments to date, both the federal government and private industry are determined to change this. The emerging consensus on Wall Street is that the pandemic will not delay US investment in 5G this year. Politico has even suggested that the effect of the pandemic may be to spur a 5G “gold rush” in the US, and there are many signs that this is so. The White House has just released a sweeping strategic plan to catch up to China in 5G, and the FCC last week proposed to spend $9 billion to bring 5G to rural America. Meanwhile, all of the major network operators in the US have confirmed their intention to double down on 5G investment.

In Europe, the picture is not so clear. Ericsson, the continent’s leading maker of 5G equipment for network operators, recently said it expects 5G investment in Europe to slow down due to the pandemic. Several European countries, including France, Spain, Austria, and the Czech Republic, have postponed planned auctions of 5G spectrum due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, there are signs that existing networks in Europe have been strained by the surge in demand for Internet bandwidth.

But there are also many signs that Europe’s leaders and policymakers understand that now is not the time to slow down investments in vital Internet infrastructure. On the contrary, now is the time to double down. All the more so now that new advances in 5G technology based on the cloud and open standards promise to reduce the cost of deploying 5G networks across the continent. I will return to this topic in a later post.