Pandemic Exposes Europe’s Creaking Internet for All to See
- Pandemic reveals weaknesses in region’s broadband networks
- Governments start to engage with industry to spur investment
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Shortly after coronavirus forced Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to lock down the country, lawmaker Massimiliano Capitanio took an unusual call at his office in Rome.
It was an appeal for help from a hospital at the epicenter of the outbreak in northern Italy. Its administrators direly needed faster internet connections and computers to deal with the flood of patients. Capitanio -- who sits on parliament’s telecommunications committee -- called the country’s phone companies to help out.