Telecommunications infrastructure
2024 predictions for telecomms infrastructure
The previously integrated network of submarine cables will continue separating between China and the USA. We have already seen, for instance, that the USA banned landing rights to a few submarine cables with links to China. And China started investing in separate cable systems, such as a new cable connecting China with France via Singapore, Pakistan, and Egypt.
Faced with these divisions, countries will focus on digital sustainability by developing alternative digital routes. They will also work more on preserving content locally via internet exchange points (IXPs).
Outer space is another field of accelerated competition between the USA and China, as well as other public and private actors. In the area of internet connectivity alone, low-orbit satellite (mega)constellations by the likes of SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper are to face competition from China Satellite Network Group’s Gouwang project.
National space agencies and private actors alike are planning or working on deploying (new) communications and navigation networks (e.g. around the Moon), the development of new space stations, and the exploration and exploitation of space resources (e.g. metals, minerals), giving rise to new governance issues.
Against this backdrop, ensuring a fair and responsible allocation and use of spectrum resources and orbital positions, encouraging responsible behaviour in outer space from public and private actors, and ensuring the sustainability of space activities will be some of the questions that UN bodies and processes – from the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to the Summit of the Future – will be addressing in 2024.
The 2023 WTO World Trade Report noted that Sino-American tensions are contributing to pre-existing fragmentation trends in the world economy. This is leading to a search for economic independence (instead of interdependence) in sensitive areas, and to a reorientation of trade flows along geopolitical divides. This finding is particularly concerning due to the central position occupied by the United States and China in the global economy, creating pressure for their trade partners to position themselves along the fault lines.
The relations that the EU nurtures with both sides, particularly when implementing its Economic Security Strategy will be key to counter – or at least to mitigate – fragmentation trends. Simultaneous politico-ideological and value chain fragmentation would mean that divides would become harder to bridge in the future, with negative consequences for markets and technological interoperability.
Push for sovereignty in tech realm
In 2024, countries and regional blocs such as the EU will also push for more self-reliance in terms of digital developments. Initiatives focused on achieving digital, data, AI, or cyber sovereignty are often motivated by a desire to reduce the risks of negative security and economic spillovers from integrated digital networks.
The sovereignty drive takes different forms. Sometimes, it is about control of infrastructure. In order cases, it is about preserving data on national territory. Increasingly, it is about facilitating national AI developments.
Approaches to digital sovereignty will vary, depending on a country’s political and legal systems. Legal approaches include national regulation and court judgments; technical ones vary between data filtering and frowned-upon internet shutdowns.
But a focus on digital sovereignty reduces the appetite for global digital governance solutions. In one illustration of this, the recent withdrawal of the USA from the WTO e-commerce negotiations was justified by the need to gain more room for regulating tech companies nationally.
2023 recap for telecoms infrastructure
Geopolitics of submarine cables
Submarine cables became the focus of global interest following the Nord Stream blast. Cutting major submarine cables could create havoc in our digitally interdependent civilisation. In the same context, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs sent a warning message at the UN Security Council hearing on the risks for digital cables. NATO has also set up a Critical Undersea Infrastructure Protection Cell with one of the main aims to protect internet submarine cables.
Another area of increasing decoupling between China and the US is submarine cables. The US has declined landing rights for a few new submarine cables that have Chinese landing points or involve Chinese companies in cable laying or management. Following Chinese retaliation, it is very likely that two parallel submarine cable systems led by China and the United States will emerge.
Geopolitics of outer space
In January, we said that outer space activities would likely get more attention in governance and diplomacy talks. And, indeed, quite a lot has been going on over the past 12 months. At the UN level, the Open-ended Working Group on reducing space threats (OEWG-Space) through norms, rules, and principles of responsible behaviour held its third session and saw member states discuss a wide range of issues, from preventing harmful interferences in space, to addressing threats against space objects (in particular satellites), and preventing an arms race in outer space.
At the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, two new working groups were created to explore: (a) the status and application of the five UN treaties on outer space, and (b) the legal aspects of space resource activities. Meanwhile, space agencies and private actors are coming up with new initiatives and plans. Just a few examples: competition is picking up in low-earth orbit communication networks, as China’s Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and Amazon’s project Kuiper are preparing to launch satellite constellations to compete with the services provided by the likes of Starlink and OneWeb. With the moon back in the focus of space exploration activities, plans are unfolding—within the European Space Agency (ESA) and US company Lockheed Martin, for instance—to deploy new communication networks around our earth’s natural satellite.
Imagine you wanted to travel by car from one continent to another. For a smooth journey, you would need adequate roads that could take you across flatlands and mountainous regions, ships to transport you across oceans, bridges and tunnels, and proper directions. Telecommunications infrastructure is very similar.
It is a physical medium through which all internet traffic flows. This includes telephone wires, cables (including submarine cables), satellites, microwaves, and mobile technology such as fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. Even the standard electric grid can be used to relay Internet traffic utilising power-line technology. Innovative wireless solutions like Internet balloons and drones are also gradually being deployed.
The internet, therefore, is a giant network connecting devices across geographical regions.
How does data flow through this infrastructure? Let’s say a user based in Chile – connected through a data package on a device – wants to access content hosted in Spain. The user’s device would wirelessly communicate packets of information on the cellular network. Those packets would then be routed between that network and every connected network via ethernet cables, coaxial cables, and over land, underground or under-sea fibre cables, until the packets arrive at the destination server. The process is reversed – not necessarily along the exact same route – for the digital content to arrive back to the user’s device.
What are the main policy issues involved? Policy issues include access (how to connect the unconnected), the liberalisation of the telecommunications and services market (opening up the market, and therefore, boosting competition), the development of intercontinental backbone links (how to create more routes across continents to diversify internet traffic, such as China’s One Belt, One Road initiative), and the establishment and harmonisation of technical standards.
Today, since the telecommunications infrastructure is predominantly owned by the private sector, there is a strong interplay between governments, companies, the technical community, and international organisations.
A convergence of two worlds: telecoms and computers
The internet can be structured into three basic layers: a technical infrastructure layer (physical), a transport layer (standards, protocols), and an application and content layer (www, apps). A good interaction between the first two layers is crucial from the perspective of telecommunications.
In order to use and further develop the infrastructure efficiently, there was a need to bridge two worlds with different needs – telecommunications and computers. The technical standard Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) managed to bridge the two. TCP/IP works over the infrastructure; all applications work over TCP/IP. Nowadays, much of telecommunications infrastructure is built to fit the needs of digital communication and the internet.
Internet backbone cables
Since the first telegraph cable reached India via the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean in 1870, most international electronic communications traffic has been carried via seabed cables. In addition, many private companies and governments own complex networks of undersea cables. Currently, 98% of all global internet traffic flows through submarine fibre-optic cables. These cables reach land through a few internet traffic hubs, such as Miami for most Latin American cables, and Singapore and Hong Kong for Asia.
Take a look at what an under-sea cable looks like:
Recent years have seen a proliferation of cables financed by giant tech companies, due to the demand for services requiring faster connections. Google, for instance, is deploying the Equiano cable connecting Europe and the West African coast, while the 2Africa cable system initiated by Meta aims to connect 23 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Submarine internet cables – April 2023 (Source: Geography)
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The last mile
The local loop (or last mile) refers to the connection between ISPs and their individual users. Problems with the local loop – including cable lines in poor conditions, power outages, physical barriers to reaching remote places, and prices for deployment – are an obstacle to the more widespread use of the Internet in many countries, mainly in the developing world.
One common solution is to use existing infrastructure such as copper wires, or cable TV and mobile networks. In order to make good use of such infrastructure, governments and regulatory bodies often order operators to rent their loops (local loop unbundling).
Another low-cost solution is the use of wireless communications. Major tech companies have been experimenting with various projects, including providing mobile access from internet balloons and drones.
Mobile connectivity
Initially, mobile networks were constructed primarily to deliver a voice service. As the technology advanced, options for sending text messages (SMS), then multimedia messages (MMS), and, later, limited-bandwidth data transfers, were added. We are now in a phase where mobile networks mainly provide high-bandwidth data transfer, with other services being conveyed in digital form as well (such as VoIP).
Mobile internet connectivity has developed through several iterations. The second generation, 2G, was the first to be enhanced with the general packet radio service (GPRS) data transfer of up to 60 Kbps, useful for normal browsing and emails. High-speed packet access (HSPA), a 3G upgrade, provided internet speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps and became useful for mobile TV streaming and other high-end data transmissions. 4G services brought speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps.
Building on its predecessors, 5G brings significant improvements in speed, latency, and bandwidth, making it essential in unlocking the potential of AI, IoT, virtual and augmented realities, and more. Not yet a reality (standardisation work is likely to start in 2026 at the 3GPP), 6G promises to enhance machine communication (e.g. autonomous machines, collaborative robots) and human communication (e.g. enriching immersive experiences), and foster advancement in enabling services that require features such as high accuracy location, mapping, or body sensing data.
Read more: 5G
Satellite internet
Satellite internet services are used as a backbone link to enable internet connectivity in particular in underserved and remote locations. In addition to governments launching operational geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellites to provide connectivity, there are also several GEO satellite companies (e.g. Eutelsat, Inmarsat, Intelsat), as well as an increasing number of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators providing access to broadband via satellites (e.g. Globalstar, SES).
An example of new satellite technologies is the private initiative Starlink, a satellite constellation constructed by the American company SpaceX. By March 2023, Starlink had launched over 3,700 small LEO satellites; the company has approvals to deploy 12,000 satellites and has applied for authorisations for a further 30,000. The other main initiative, OneWeb has a constellation of 648 LEO satellites as of April 2023.
Competition in the field of satellite internet services is set to intensify, as more actors – such as the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and Amazon’s project Kuiper – are working on launching satellite constellations to compete with the services provided by the likes of Starlink and OneWeb.
Regulating the telecommunications infrastructure
The telecoms infrastructure is regulated at both the national and international level by a variety of public and private organisations. International organisations include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which develops rules for coordination between national telecommunications systems, the allocation of the radio spectrum, and the management of satellite positioning; and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which has played a key role in the liberalisation of telecommunications markets worldwide.
The roles of the ITU and the WTO are quite different. The ITU sets detailed voluntary technical standards and telecommunications-specific international regulations, and provides assistance to developing countries. The WTO provides a framework for general market rules.
Following liberalisation, the ITU’s near monopoly as the principal standard setting institution for telecommunications was eroded by other professional bodies and organisations. At the same time, large telecommunications companies – such as AT&T, Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange, Tata Communications, and Level 3 Communications – were given the opportunity to globally extend their market coverage. Since most internet traffic is carried over the telecommunications infrastructure of such companies, they have an important influence on the development of the internet.
Additional resources
- Status of internet access and connectivity in Africa
- Digital infrastructure and standards in Africa: National priorities and elements of foreign policy | Continental and regional policies and their international elements
