Policy & Regulation

Satellite Industry Heats Up as Amazon, SpaceX and Blue Origin Compete for Orbit

April's satellite sector saw Amazon's $10.8bn Globalstar bid, surging plans for orbital data centres, intensifying SpaceX rivalry, regulatory friction, and doubts over broadband promises, underscoring a crowded, contested race to control next-generation connectivity infrastructure global.

Authority Formation and Legitimacy in Parallel Governance Tracks

Africa's internet governance faces parallel tracks as AFRINIC's community-led reforms unfold alongside a continent-wide blueprint, raising questions over whether legitimacy will stem from participatory processes or increasingly coordinated external alignment.

Building RIPE SEE: A Conversation With Jan Žorž About Community, Trust, and the Work Behind a Regional Event

Jan Žorž reflects on SEE RIPE's role in uniting a fragmented region, where trust built through informal exchange now underpins internet resilience and helps align engineers with policymakers as regulatory pressures intensify.

Beyond Connectivity: How Submarine Cable Resilience Dictates Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Fragmented Governance

Subsea cables underpin global data flows, yet resilience, control and deep sea access now define digital sovereignty as governance fragments, hyperscalers consolidate ownership, and states prioritize survivability over efficiency in an increasingly contested geopolitical seabed.

Africa’s Community Networks Offer a Local Path to Inclusive and Resilient Connectivity

Community networks, locally built and governed, are emerging across Africa as cost-effective tools to extend connectivity, bolster digital sovereignty, and improve cyber resilience, despite regulatory, financial, and technical constraints that hinder broader adoption.

Fixing Geofeed: From Self-Reported Data to Verified Trust

Geofeed data, long reliant on unverifiable self-assertions, faces mounting security risks. Integrating RPKI could transform it into a trusted, cryptographically validated infrastructure, strengthening routing integrity, regulatory compliance, and digital sovereignty across an increasingly contested internet.

The New Space Race for Connectivity: Satellite Internet and Critical Infrastructure

Satellite internet is from backup to core infrastructure, as LEO constellations, non-terrestrial networks and direct-to-device services reshape connectivity, forcing governments and operators to rethink resilience, sovereignty and the architecture of the internet.

No Safe Harbor: SCOTUS Scuttles the DMCA

America's Supreme Court, in Cox v Sony, recast online copyright liability, effectively sidelining the DMCA safe harbor and replacing it with a narrow inducement standard that leaves service providers little obligation to meaningfully police infringement.

The Historical Mandate of the RIR System

The history of the Regional Internet Registry system shows it was designed as a community-governed framework, not a passive ledger, with legitimacy rooted in delegated authority, open policy development, and multistakeholder coordination from its inception.

Why Africa’s Cybersecurity Problem Has Nothing to Do with Hackers

Africa's cybersecurity failures stem less from sophisticated hackers than from insecure system design, weak governance and limited skills, leaving institutions exposed and shifting the challenge from external threats to internal accountability and resilience.