American sensors recently detected Russian submarine activity near undersea cables that transmit huge amounts of data between continents. Military and intelligence officials are on edge. Every day, these fiber optic cables carry $10 trillion in global business and more than 95 percent of global communications.
Fiber optic cable offers the highest capacity, lowest cost and fastest Internet speeds, and developing countries have benefited from efforts to extend connectivity to their shores. But bridging the digital divide is not as simple as laying cables between continents, and the race to connect the next billion people to the Internet has given rise to a wide variety of solutions.
Devex spoke with a range of experts to hear more about some of the most promising examples.