Faster Home Broadband Should Be Enshrined in Law

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December 17, 2021 Faster Home Broadband Should Be Enshrined in Law By Chris Stokel-Walker The way we use the internet has changed—and fast. Before the pandemic, telecoms and internet service provider BT was handling five terabits of data every second from its UK customers during the day. When the pandemic hit and the world locked down, data volumes doubled. In Germany, DE-CIX Frankfurt, a major connection point for the global internet, broke multiple bandwidth records with 2020 peak volumes beating 2019 rates by 28 percent.   One week, the world's offices were buzzing. The next, they were silent. In the new normal, office workers spend their days leaping from one video conferencing service to another, each one using up vital bandwidth. Workplace communications platforms like Slack constantly ping and buzz. And beneath them our home broadband connections are creaking.   If the world of work changed overnight, the infrastructure providing it has evolved at a more leisurely pace. But now lawmakers are trying to do something about it. Switzerland is the latest country to decide its internet infrastructure is too sluggish, suggesting it will require service providers to offer at least 80 Mbits/second download speeds and 8 Mbits/second upload speeds by 2024, up from 10 and 1 Mbits/second at present. The significant increase is necessary to ensure people have reliable, fast connections as standard in order to work from home and keep up with online education, the Swiss government says. Read the full story on WIRED   The Biodiversity Crisis Needs Its Net Zero Moment By Matt Reynolds Climate change isn't the only major crisis facing the world. We're in the middle of a mass extinction, and missing all of our biodiversity targets. Today's job picks Technology Client Engineer Oracle Apply now Director, Technology and Cyber risk OakNorth Bank Apply now Get the latest issue of WIRED   Read about Sir David Attenborough's return to the field, and his mission to save our planet.                                                  Also in this issue... WIRED's list of rising startups and founders Iceland is a training hub for astronauts Who owns the internet's backbone? The best winter gear to hit the slopes   Subscribe for £19 a year Prefer a weekly digest? Subscribe to the WIRED Weekly Unsubscribe  |  View this email in your browser  Queries about this email? Contact datacontroller@condenast.co.uk Condé Nast Publications 1 Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd Our Privacy Policy