By late 2023, nearly every Ukrainian combat brigade had integrated drones, with dedicated UAV units for surveillance, artillery spotting, and attack missions. Small off-the-shelf DJI Mavic quadcopters, priced around $1,500–$3,000, were widely used for frontline reconnaissance and artillery correction. FPV kamikaze drones cost as little as $400–$500 to assemble and have been linked to a…
Read more
As of early 2025, about 28.6 million Ethiopians were internet users, roughly 21.3% of the population. Ethio Telecom owned about 23,000 km of fiber-optic cable across Ethiopia as of 2023, forming the national backbone and linking to neighboring undersea cables via Djibouti. In late 2024, Ethio Telecom signed a Horizon Fiber corridor deal with Djibouti…
Read more
The Seychelles East Africa System (SEAS) became Seychelles’ first major undersea cable, linking the islands to continental Africa in the early 2010s and ending reliance on satellites. In August 2021, Intelvision secured support to lease a branch of the 2Africa submarine cable, enabling 600 Gbps of international capacity and added redundancy. Cable & Wireless Seychelles…
Read more
As of early 2024, Mexico had over 107 million internet users, about 83% of the population. Fixed broadband is increasingly fiber-based, with around 70% of fixed connections using fiber (FTTH) and Telmex migrating about 85% of its broadband customers from DSL to fiber. Red Compartida, launched in 2018 by Altán Redes, reached 95.3% of the…
Read more
Fixed fiber dominates Iceland’s broadband, with FTTH at 88.7% of fixed lines and over 93% of homes having gigabit-capable fiber, including at least 1 Gbps nationwide and 10 Gbps in most areas. Iceland is linked internationally by four submarine cables—FARICE-1, DANICE, Greenland Connect, and IRIS (launched in 2023 to Ireland)—totaling 208.8 Tbit/s of capacity, of…
Read more
As of early 2024, 96.5% of Chilean households have internet access, up from about 70.2% in 2015. Fixed broadband subscriptions reached 4.52 million in 2023, or 22.6 per 100 inhabitants. As of late 2023, nearly 70% of fixed connections are fiber-optic (FTTH/B), with copper DSL largely replaced. 96.8% of urban households and 94.5% of rural…
Read more
The iPhone 14 introduced Emergency SOS via satellite in September 2022 using the Globalstar network, with a US/Canada launch in November 2022 and expansion to 17 countries by mid-2024. The Huawei Mate 60 Pro, released in August 2023, became the world’s first smartphone to support direct satellite voice calls via China’s Tiantong-1 GEO constellation. Iridium…
Read more
OneWeb’s first-generation constellation comprises 648 LEO satellites at about 1,200 km altitude, each ~150 kg, using Ku-band for user links and Ka-band for gateways, with 16 spot beams and no inter-satellite laser links, delivering up to 7.2 Gbps per satellite. By late 2021, OneWeb achieved partial service in high-latitude regions, focusing on the Arctic, Northern…
Read more
Starlink is a SpaceX satellite internet constellation that began launching in 2019 to deliver broadband virtually anywhere on Earth. As of late 2024, SpaceX had launched over 7,000 Starlink satellites, with FCC authorization for about 12,000 and potential expansion beyond 30,000 in the future. Starlink satellites orbit at approximately 550 km altitude in multiple orbital…
Read more
As of 2023, about 88% of Brazilians aged 10 or older used the internet, equal to roughly 164 million people. In 2023, about 92.5% of Brazilian households had internet access. Regional disparities exist, with the Central-West around 91% online in 2023 while the North and Northeast hovered around 85%. Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) has surged, and by…
Read more
