With an estimated one-third of the world’s population (about 2.6 billion people) still offline, predominantly in rural and low-income areas, FWA offers a fast, cost-effective way to reach the “last mile.” Unlike plugging a smartphone into a router, FWA uses specialised customer-premises equipment, along with spectrum licenses, to provide stable, high-speed links.

Its portability and lower construction costs make it ideal for areas where laying fibre is prohibitively expensive or slow.

In short, FWA brings fibre-like speeds to underserved areas in weeks or months, rather than years, helping to close the digital divide while opening new business opportunities for investors.

What is fixed wireless access?

Fixed Wireless Access is a broadband service designed for homes and businesses, delivered via a cellular network. As Ericsson explains, “FWA is a wireless connection that provides broadband access to a specific location, such as a home or enterprise premises. It enables high-speed internet via radio signal, without the need for physical cables.”

It typically involves a small antenna (customer premises equipment or CPE) mounted on the outside (or inside) of a building, which communicates with a nearby 4G/5G base station. While FWA can run on existing 4G LTE networks, 5G FWA offers much greater capacity. Because 5G supports much higher speeds and lower latency, it can deliver performance comparable to fibre optics, making it a true alternative even in cities.

FWA differs from personal hotspots or “tethering” in that the receiver is stationary and dedicated, which allows for unlimited data plans and guaranteed performance. In a way, FWA treats each home like a 5G customer, but fixed so that operators can offer symmetrical, high-capacity links similar to wired broadband.

As one telecom strategist put it, fixed wireless has moved from a niche solution to a “primary growth driver” for broadband expansion. The technology works best when homes stay in roughly the same location (no driving off with the router) and ideally have some line of sight to the cell tower. However, new equipment and the use of spectrum are extending the range and overcoming obstacles, widening FWA’s reach.

FWA and the digital divide

Worldwide, connectivity gaps are stark. In high-income countries, roughly 93% of people are online, but in low-income countries, only about 27% have internet access. Rural areas lag even further. Globally, 83% of urban dwellers are online versus only 48% in rural communities. In fact, of the 2.6 billion people still offline in 2024, 1.8 billion live in rural areas. This digital divide is not just statistics; it translates into missed opportunities in education, healthcare, commerce, and more. Providing affordable broadband to underserved populations could be transformative for emerging economies.

In this context, FWA is being embraced as a key bridging technology. Its low infrastructure cost, with no need to dig trenches for cable, can cut deployment expenses by roughly half in hard-to-wire areas.

Deploying FWA involves installing towers and dishes, which is much faster than stringing fibre across mountains or forests. Samsung’s network experts note that FWA “can reach the last mile” and is often “easy and fast to deploy,” making it ideal for unserved markets.

The cost savings also tend to be passed on to customers; for example, rural home internet plans over 4G/5G are often cheaper than legacy DSL or fibre services, aiding adoption in price-sensitive communities.

In remote regions of the United States and elsewhere, towers like this one are being equipped with 5G radios to serve fixed wireless customers. For instance, UScellular, in partnership with Ericsson, launched 5G millimetre-wave FWA service targeting rural and suburban homes.

In April 2022, the company began offering home internet speeds of several hundred Mbps in ten cities. Within months, nearly 180,000 households were able to access the service. Upgrading antenna technology has expanded its FWA coverage area by roughly 40 times, delivering speeds of up to 300 Mbps in areas previously too remote for cable.

Similar efforts are underway at other US carriers; a recent Accenture/ CTIA study finds that 5G FWA could economically serve 8.4 million rural US households, which is nearly half of all rural homes, with high-speed broadband. In the US, billions of dollars in federal subsidies are also being directed toward new FWA-friendly deployments, recognising it as a fast path to connect the hardest-to-reach communities.

Across the globe, governments and telecom companies are promoting FWA as a digital inclusion tool. In Bangladesh, for instance, regulators recently authorised mobile carriers to offer fixed wireless broadband to homes and offices. Under the new 5G guidelines, operators can now use their wireless spectrum to extend coverage into rural villages and urban edge areas where wired infrastructure is sparse.

One local newspaper noted that this move will “extend broadband coverage efficiently, especially in areas with limited wired infrastructure.” In India, Reliance Jio is already deploying FWA on its nationwide 5G network; Jio’s 5G “AirFiber” plans are reaching remote districts and fuelling explosive growth.

A June 2025 report notes that Jio’s FWA subscriber base has ballooned to 6.88 million, slightly surpassing the 6.85 million fixed-wireless users of US-based T-Mobile, making Jio poised to become the world’s largest FWA provider. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, wireless broadband is often the only realistic option. Tarana Wireless, for example, is working with Microsoft’s Airband initiative to deploy “next-generation FWA” in several African countries.

In some regions of Africa, fewer than 30% of people have reliable internet today. Such efforts, using FWA radios capable of handling non-line-of-sight signals and interference, could rapidly improve connectivity for schools, clinics, and homes, even in rugged terrain.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, both governments and multilateral banks recognise significant opportunities. Currently, over 240 million people in Latin America lack internet access, which represents about one-third of the population.

Analysts from Ericsson note that many countries are beginning 5G rollouts with FWA use cases in mind because “FWA is ideal for places that are difficult to access with traditional fixed broadband.”

The Inter-American Development Bank even estimates that closing the region’s digital gap could boost GDP by up to 7.7% and create over 15 million jobs, which is a significant boost to economic growth, gains to which rapidly expanding broadband (whether wired or wireless) would contribute. In practice, some Latin operators have trialled 5G FWA in rural Peru and Brazil, and big carriers like Claro (America Movil) have signalled interest in using 5G home internet to reach unserved areas.

Overall, the message is clear: the areas hardest to wire tend to be exactly where digital connectivity is needed most for development, and FWA offers a practical way to bring broadband to those communities. By delivering multi-hundred-megabit service over the air, FWA can connect remote schools, telemedicine outposts, and low-income neighbourhoods that have fallen off the fibre map. It is already reshaping market dynamics.

For example, in 2023, over 90% of new broadband subscribers at Tier-1 carriers in the US came via FWA rather than fibre or cable. Operators everywhere are taking note. Even smaller regional ISPs and rural cooperatives see fixed wireless as a growth engine, and hardware vendors report that virtually every operator is now planning or deploying FWA networks.

Investment and market trends

FWA is also a bright spot for investors and equipment makers. The global market for fixed wireless broadband is booming. A recent industry forecast values the FWA market at about $36.5 billion in 2024, with projected growth to roughly $127.6 billion by 2032, which reflects a 17% CAGR. This rapid growth is primarily fueled by the need for connectivity in rural and underserved areas. The report notes that “growing demand for broadband in underserved and rural areas is driving market growth.”

Unsurprisingly, most of the early deployments have been in North America, which currently holds the highest share of the FWA market, but Asia-Pacific is expected to grow the fastest, thanks to initiatives in India, China, and Southeast Asia.

Major industry players are positioning themselves accordingly. Traditional telecom giants like Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T (all in the US) and equipment vendors like Nokia and Ericsson are highlighted as top FWA players.

Indeed, each of the “big three” US wireless carriers has already launched 4G/5G home internet products and is investing in FWA-capable radio sites. On the vendor side, Nokia and Ericsson have boosted their FWA product lines in recent years. Nokia’s 5G AirScale and Lightspan products, and Ericsson’s FWA CPE and small-cell portfolios, are being sold into markets worldwide.

Even traditionally mobile-focused equipment makers are touting FWA. For example, Samsung has made statements about how its 5G radios can be used to cost-effectively extend broadband under US government subsidy programmes.

There is also a surge of private investment and partnerships in this space. United States-based startup Tarana Wireless, which makes so-called “next-generation FWA” gear optimised for NLoS rural use, has attracted over $400 million in R&D and capital to date.

In 2023, Tarana raised an additional $50 million from Digital Alpha, a digital infrastructure investor, to scale its deployments. Digital Alpha’s thesis is centred on funding wireless internet service providers that rely on FWA, recognising that this technology can “fundamentally change network performance and operator economics” for rural ISPs. Tarana’s C1 (Gigabit 1) platform is now used by hundreds of small ISPs in 21 countries, and its success stories have piqued investor interest.

Despite its promise, FWA also faces challenges. Many regions still lack sufficient mid-band 5G frequencies or the regulatory approvals for using them in fixed services. Without mid-band spectrum, operators may rely on crowded sub-6GHz or limited mmWave bands, affecting coverage or penetration.

FWA can claim to offer fibre-like speeds, but real-world throughput may vary based on distance, interference, and whether customers share a cell. Some early fixed wireless plans experienced speed fluctuations or data caps that limited user experience. Emerging “next-gen” FWA systems aim to reduce these issues, but rollout and operator expertise are still catching up with the technology hype.

Finally, bridging the digital divide is not just a technology problem but also involves local education and support. In some regions, even when high-speed internet is available, adoption is low due to affordability, digital literacy, or competing priorities. Effective FWA initiatives often pair network buildout with programmes for subsidised service, community training, or partnerships with schools and clinics.

The post FWA: The future of Internet access appeared first on International Finance.

Its arrival has been heralded as a digital lifeline for isolated communities, but it is also posing regulatory challenges and stirring debate. International Finance explores Starlink’s expansion in the Pacific, offering a balanced look at the opportunities it presents and the hurdles it faces.

What is Starlink?

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation with thousands of small satellites in low-Earth orbit. Launched and operated by SpaceX, these satellites fly much closer to Earth than traditional communications satellites, enabling low-latency, high-bandwidth internet connectivity on the ground.

Users access Starlink via a pizza-box-sized dish antenna (a terminal) that communicates with the passing satellites. The signal is then routed through ground stations and into the global internet. In essence, Starlink beams the web from the sky directly to users’ homes, bypassing the need for undersea cables or extensive land infrastructure.

This model differs from older satellite services. Traditional providers like Kacific rely on a single geostationary satellite positioned tens of thousands of kilometres above the equator. Geostationary satellites stay fixed relative to Earth’s rotation, so a dish can point at one spot in the sky. However, they often suffer from higher latency and require larger ground equipment.

Starlink’s low-flying satellites reduce latency dramatically, at the cost of needing many satellites moving across the sky and sophisticated tracking by the dish. OneWeb, a British-backed venture, is another LEO satellite internet provider eyeing the Pacific market. Together, these systems represent a new generation of space-based internet that can reach places traditional broadband has never touched.

Starlink’s Pacific debut and expansion

Starlink’s journey into the Pacific has unfolded over the past few years, beginning with a dramatic entrance in Tonga and spreading to many islands. Below is a timeline of key milestones.

In January 2022, a massive undersea volcanic eruption severed Tonga’s only international fibre-optic cable, plunging the Kingdom into digital darkness. In response, Elon Musk offered to send Starlink terminals to help. Within weeks, SpaceX set up a ground station in neighbouring Fiji and donated 50 Starlink terminals to Tonga.

Tonga’s former Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni hailed it as a “paradoxical silver lining,” noting that cutting-edge satellite technology arrived as a result of the disaster. The Starlink units were deployed to remote outer islands hardest hit by the tsunami, providing free high-speed internet until Tonga’s cable could be repaired.

In 2023, there were some early reactions and restrictions. As Starlink’s constellation grew, Pacific nations began grappling with how to regulate it. In Samoa, authorities initially banned Starlink in January 2023 due to unauthorised use of terminals, only to reconsider a few months later.

By March 2023, Samoa’s cabinet approved Starlink in principle, aiming to partner with SpaceX so that some revenue stays in-country. Meanwhile, Vanuatu’s regulator in early 2023 warned that Starlink use was illegal without a license. Vanuatu reportedly banned unlicensed Starlink gear in February 2023, reflecting concerns about interference and regulatory oversight.

By late 2023, the first licenses were granted, and demand grew. By the end of 2023, some Pacific nations had officially adopted Starlink. Fiji became a leader by licensing Starlink in November 2023, allowing the service to operate commercially. According to Fijian officials, Starlink connectivity had spread to “over 300 islands” across Fiji by May 2024.

In Niue, however, authorities grew alarmed at Starlink units quietly appearing on the island. With no license issued to SpaceX, Niue declared Starlink operations illegal, setting the stage for a ban in 2024.

Then came the legal showdowns and stopgap measures. The new year saw mixed fortunes for Starlink. In Papua New Guinea, the government announced in January 2024 that it had granted a five-year license for Starlink, calling it a “New Year’s gift” to the nation’s tech sector. However, competing providers and regulators raised questions, and by August 2024, the Starlink license in PNG had become entangled in a court challenge, now under judicial review.

PNG’s telecom authority even confiscated some Starlink kits brought in without permission, signalling that service would be on hold until the courts decide. Meanwhile, Tonga faced a mini-crisis when, on June 29, 2024, a domestic undersea cable outage cut off two of its islands from Tongatapu. At the same time, some Tongans had begun using Starlink without authorisation.

On July 9, Tongan officials ordered Starlink to cease operations due to a lack of an operating license. Just ten days later, recognising the ongoing outage, the government granted a six-month provisional permit for Starlink so that connectivity could be restored in the outer islands while a full license was processed.

Toward the end of 2024, the Pacific saw novel implementations of Starlink. Nauru opened the region’s first “Starlink community gateway” in December 2024. This is essentially a high-capacity Starlink installation meant to feed an entire community or country’s network, expanding internet access beyond individual user terminals. Similarly, in the Federated States of Micronesia, the state of Kosrae launched its own Starlink community gateway in February 2025.

Meanwhile, Vanuatu, which had initially banned Starlink, softened its stance. After back-to-back cyclones caused extensive damage in early 2023, Vanuatu granted a temporary restricted license in 2024 to allow Starlink during disaster recovery.

By mid-2025, Starlink boasted availability in over 100 countries worldwide, and the Pacific Islands are increasingly part of that map. According to regional reports, Starlink access is now on offer in many of the 18 member states of the Pacific Islands Forum, including Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, and others, though not all have formalised the service. In July 2025, Tonga moved from provisional permission to a full operating license for Starlink.

As of 2025, the momentum is evident because satellite internet is becoming a fixture in the Pacific, even as each nation finds its own path to accommodate or restrict the new technology. Fiji has emerged as an enthusiastic early adopter of Starlink’s technology. Fiji officially licensed Starlink in late 2023, with Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica touting the service as a “game changer for Fiji” that will boost connectivity during natural disasters and for remote islands.

One of the most celebrated uses of Starlink in Fiji has been in education. In a government-led initiative, Starlink units were installed at six remote schools in the interior of Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu. These are villages that previously had little to no internet access. Thanks to Starlink, students and teachers in places like Nakorosule and Nadarivatu can browse online learning materials and even join virtual lessons — activities once unimaginable in these areas.

The Education Ministry noted that these six schools are now benefiting from “high-speed, low-latency” internet, unlocking everything from cloud-based teaching tools to improved school administration. This aligns with a global “GIGA” initiative to connect every school to the internet by 2030, and Fiji’s government appears keen to leapfrog decades of limited infrastructure using satellite broadband.

Beyond schools, Starlink is extending connectivity to Fiji’s far-flung communities. With over 100 inhabited islands, Fiji has long struggled to connect rural villagers who live beyond the reach of fibre-optic cables or even cellular towers.

In stark contrast to Fiji, the tiny Pacific Island of Niue took a hard line against Starlink, at least initially. Niue’s government outright banned Starlink usage in 2024, warning that anyone operating the service without a license could face fines of up to about $200 or even three months in prison.

The sudden ban came after officials discovered several Starlink units had appeared on Niue without authorisation. In Niue, all communications services are governed by an ageing Communications Act of 1989, which requires operators to be licensed. The island’s lone telecom provider, state-owned Telecom Niue, relies on satellite bandwidth and a 4G mobile network to serve its 1,700 residents. Unlicensed Starlink dishes, in the government’s view, threatened to bypass these regulations and potentially undermine the local telecom system.

Niue’s Minister of Infrastructure, Crossley Tatui, even asked SpaceX to geofence or disable Starlink in Niue’s territory. As of mid-2024, that request had reportedly gone unanswered, and a handful of residents continued to use Starlink illicitly.

One of them is Glen Jackson, a Niuean entrepreneur and musician, who has become an outspoken advocate for the service. His multimedia company livestreams events like funerals and sports tournaments. It was nearly impossible with Niue’s limited 4G network. Jackson noted that Starlink’s faster upload speeds allow him to reliably stream from villages that previously had little bandwidth. On downloads, Niue’s 4G might deliver 40-50 Mbps on a good day, whereas Starlink gave him 200-380 Mbps. It was definitely a transformative difference.

Tonga’s experience with Starlink encapsulates both the life-saving potential of satellite internet and the complexities of integrating it into a national framework. As noted in the timeline, Tonga was the first Pacific country to use Starlink, albeit out of sheer necessity. When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted catastrophically in January 2022, it wreaked physical devastation and severed Tonga’s only international fibre-optic cable.

Overnight, this nation of 100,000 was cut off from the world. In the crisis, Starlink became a lifeline. SpaceX’s donated terminals enabled connectivity in some of the worst-hit outer islands, allowing villagers to communicate and access information while the undersea cable was repaired. Tongan officials expressed deep gratitude for the assistance. So much so that the then PM Sovaleni quipped that Elon Musk likely hadn’t known much about Tonga before, “but gave generously” when the country was in need.

After the emergency period, Tonga’s traditional internet links were restored, and the Starlink units were presumably deactivated or returned. But the episode planted a seed. Tongans had tasted the “decent speeds and stable connections” that a LEO satellite system could provide, even in remote villages. Interest in Starlink remained. By 2023, some Tongans acquired Starlink kits through unofficial means.

This caught the attention of Tonga’s Ministry of Communications. The government was also mindful of its domestic telecom operators, state-owned Tonga Communications Corp and private Digicel, which provide internet via fibre and 4G networks. Regulators wanted to avoid a Wild West scenario of unauthorised dishes.

Things came to a head in mid-2024 when a section of Tonga’s domestic subsea cable network went down, cutting off two island groups. In those outer islands, people and businesses turned to whatever connectivity they could, including some rogue Starlink setups. Initially, authorities moved to crack down on the unlicensed use.

However, they faced public pressure due to the ongoing outage. The compromise was a temporary six-month permit for Starlink starting in July 2024. This allowed Starlink to operate legally in Tonga for the first time, albeit under conditions set by the government. Officials said the permit was a “pivotal step” to address connectivity needs while a full license was being finalised.

Fast forward to mid-2025, and Tonga is fully on board with Starlink. The Ministry of Communications granted an official operating license to SpaceX, enabling Starlink to “deliver high-speed internet across Tonga” on a normal commercial basis.

Approvals, bans, and uncertainty

Navigating the regulatory landscape of the Pacific has proven to be one of Starlink’s biggest challenges. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, as each island nation has its own laws, telecom landscape, and priorities. The result is a patchwork of approvals, bans, and grey zones that can be confusing for consumers.

Countries like Fiji, Tonga, and Palau are welcoming Starlink. The governments of these nations have approved Starlink through formal licenses or interim permits. The advantage for consumers is obvious because where Starlink is approved, people can legally buy the equipment and pay the monthly fees in local currency, often via a domestic reseller, without fear of penalties.

Indeed, in approved markets, the Starlink website will ship a kit straight to your door. In countries like Vanuatu and Samoa, Starlink is being allowed but cautiously. Samoa’s regulator, for instance, said it might take up to two years to fully license SpaceX, but in the meantime, Samoans have been permitted to import Starlink kits for personal use. This creates a de facto temporary legality. People can get online with Starlink now while the bureaucracy catches up later.

Then there are the holdouts and ambiguous cases. Niue’s ban is one example of an explicit “no.” Another was Papua New Guinea’s legal saga. After the initial license announcement in January 2024, PNG’s National Information and Communication Technology Authority faced pushback. Critics argued the license was rushed, and by August, the courts put the license on hold pending a judicial review.

Until that’s resolved, importing or operating Starlink in PNG without special permission is technically illegal, and authorities showed they would enforce this by seizing unauthorised equipment at customs. Vanuatu signalled that any Starlink gear brought in outside the approved emergency use would be confiscated unless and until full authorisation is granted.

A Starlink terminal is essentially a transmitter/receiver, so it normally should be certified in each country. Some nations, like Samoa, initially banned Starlink partly because the equipment had not gone through this certification process, raising theoretical safety concerns.

Additionally, there’s the economic angle, since telecommunication is often a significant revenue source for Pacific governments, either through state-owned operators or licensing fees from private companies. If everyone suddenly buys internet service from a US-based company via credit card, how do local providers survive, and how do governments get their due? Niue’s insistence on licenses and talk of taxing such services stems from this concern.

For consumers, the regulatory diversity can be frustrating. In practical terms, a person on one island might set up Starlink and enjoy fast internet, while a person on the next island could get fined for doing the same thing. This has led to some creative workarounds. Some Pacific Islanders have taken advantage of Starlink’s roaming feature. They purchase the kit in a country where it’s authorised (like New Zealand or Fiji), then use it back home where it’s not officially allowed, essentially “roaming” on a foreign subscription.

Starlink’s signals don’t respect political boundaries, so the hardware will work as long as the location is within the satellite coverage footprint. This technical reality is running up against legal boundaries drawn on maps. It’s worth noting that the regulatory landscape in the Pacific is evolving quickly. As the Asia Times observed, governance of Starlink in the Pacific remains “a mixed bag,” and change is likely. Pacific governments talk to each other, and many are watching their neighbours’ experiments.

If Tonga’s partnership model proves successful, others may imitate it. If a ban like Niue’s proves untenable or unpopular, it may eventually soften. In the interim, consumers are advised to stay informed about their country’s stance. What is perfectly legal in Fiji or Tonga now could still be a grey area in places like the Solomon Islands or the Marshall Islands, for example, if formal approvals are pending.

The Pacific’s digital future

As global satellite providers race to connect the most remote corners of the planet, the Pacific Islands stand to be one of the greatest test cases—and beneficiaries—of this revolution. The vast oceanic distances and sparsely distributed populations have long made the Pacific a connectivity challenge. Traditional infrastructure alone was never going to be enough; there will likely always be villages beyond the reach of fibre-optic cables or even cell towers. Satellite internet, led by Starlink’s widespread rollout, is now filling those gaps. In doing so, it is reshaping the region’s digital infrastructure from above.

What might the Pacific’s connected future look like? We can imagine a hybrid network, where undersea cables link the main population centres, while constellations of satellites blanket the blue gaps in between, ready to link up any community or emergency responder that needs it. In this vision, an island struck by a cyclone can switch to satellite backup within hours, or a remote outer island can host an online workshop with experts in another country. Global satellite coverage could democratise internet access in a way that was simply not feasible before.

Starlink’s expansion across the Pacific Islands brings hope and challenges. While it provides high-speed internet to remote regions, it also sparks regulatory debates and hurdles. The technology offers significant benefits, especially in education and disaster response, but local governments must navigate complex legal landscapes. As more countries adopt Starlink, the region’s digital future seems brighter. However, each island’s unique approach to regulation means the path forward will be varied, and some obstacles are likely to remain.

The post Starlink: The Pacific Islands’ digital lifeline appeared first on International Finance.

The research paper further shows how this censorship mechanism can be used as a weapon to stop UDP traffic between any host in China and those in other countries. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, activist group Great Firewall Report, Stanford University and University of Colorado Boulder worked together with different open-source communities to incorporate QUIC-based circumvention techniques into all of the main QUIC-based tools, Mozilla Firefox, and the quic-go library.

“We [..] demonstrate that this censorship mechanism can be weaponised to block UDP traffic between arbitrary hosts in China and the rest of the world. We collaborate with various open-source communities to integrate circumvention strategies into Mozilla Firefox, the quic-go library, and all major QUIC-based circumvention tools,” the paper stated.

The alleged “vulnerabilities” are caused by China’s efforts to block Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC), a transport layer network protocol that is intended to take the place of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) due to its inherent security, adaptability, and reduced performance problems.

QUIC was created in 2012 by Google employees, and at least 10% of websites use the protocol, including many Google and Meta websites. Blocking QUIC connections appears to be an extension of the GFW’s blocking of both of these organisations, though researchers point out that not all QUIC traffic is successfully blocked.

Attacks could prevent all open or root DNS resolvers outside of China from being accessed from within the state due to the vulnerability of the mechanism used to block QUIC connections, leading to widespread DNS failures.

“Defending against this attack while still censoring is difficult due to the stateless nature and ease of spoofing UDP packets. Careful engineering will be needed to allow censors to apply targeted blocks in QUIC, while simultaneously preventing availability attacks,” the paper concluded.

The post China’s attempt to upgrade “Great Firewall” didn’t yield desired results: Study appeared first on International Finance.

From Bulletproof Hosting To Proxy Networks

For decades, criminals relied on so-called bulletproof hosting: web servers in permissive jurisdictions that ignored takedown notices and law enforcement requests. Bulletproof hosts leased space to criminals and “turned a blind eye” to illicit content such as spam, malware command servers, or banned data.

However, that model is fading. Global law enforcement has increasingly targeted these hosting providers, seizing servers and indicting operators. As a result, experts say cybercriminals are abandoning dedicated illicit servers in favour of proxy networks that obscure their traffic.

Longtime researcher Thibault Seret notes that after police cracked down on bulletproof hosts, both criminals and their service providers “migrated to an alternative approach,” using proxies and VPNs to hide malicious traffic. Today’s proxy services rotate and blend customer IP addresses, often without keeping logs.

Seret told WIRED that in such a system, “you cannot technically distinguish which traffic in a node is bad and which traffic is good, because all traffic looks the same to the outside observer.”

In short, once an attacker’s data merges with normal web use, separating the two becomes a nightmare.

Residential Proxies And Consumer Devices

A key tool in this shift is the residential proxy. Unlike a traditional VPN or datacenter proxy, a residential proxy uses real IP addresses assigned by internet service providers (ISPs) to home or office devices.

In practice, this means the proxy network is built on ordinary gadgets: old Android phones, personal laptops, smart routers, and even voice assistants or smart TVs. Malware or proxy apps (sometimes installed without the owner’s knowledge) turn these devices into exit nodes. The result is a decentralised network of endpoints that resemble everyday internet users.

Think of it like this: instead of sending malicious traffic from a suspicious data centre IP, the attack is routed through a random person’s internet connection in, say, Ohio or Spain. To a website or security scanner, the request appears to originate from a legitimate household.

As Trend Micro researchers explain, “A residential proxy is a proxy on an internet-connected device… configured to provide connectivity for third parties,” often without the owner’s awareness.

In effect, criminals “rent” these hundreds of millions of IP addresses to disguise their actions as normal browsing.

This disguise is highly effective. Residential proxy services offer “real, rotating IP addresses assigned to homes and offices… that can run on consumer devices, even old Android phones or low-end laptops.” Such networks offer strong anonymity and can shield malicious traffic by blending it with benign data.

Attackers exploit this to bypass corporate and government scanners. In Seret’s words, “the magic of a proxy service… is you cannot tell who’s who.”

Malware connections now ride along with innocent chat, video calls, or streaming traffic, making red flags nearly invisible.

Modern residential proxy tools even let criminals target specific locations. Reports on the NSOCKS network show it offered proxies by state, city, or even ZIP code. Buyers could purchase a few hours of access (for just a few dollars) to proxy servers in, say, California, and carry out targeted spam or login attacks without raising suspicion. And because these proxies run on home devices, most are never flagged as malicious by security firms.

Cybersecurity firm Lumen Black Lotus Labs found that only about 10% of infected router-based proxies in a large botnet were detected by VirusTotal scanners. This means the other 90% “consistently avoid network monitoring tools with a high degree of success.”

Botnets And Proxy Marketplaces

Behind many residential proxies are botnets of compromised devices. Malware recruits large groups of routers, IoT gadgets, and PCs. One example is the Ngioweb trojan, which has infected tens of thousands of routers and IoT devices worldwide. In late 2024, researchers at Lumen and Cisco Talos reported that Ngioweb was the engine behind NSOCKS, a notorious proxy service.

At least 80% of NSOCKS’s 35,000 active proxies came from devices controlled by the Ngioweb botnet. These machines were then “rented out” on proxy marketplaces, allowing buyers to select exit nodes by city, ISP, or device type. In doing so, they could choose exactly where and how their traffic would appear to originate.

This model has become a lucrative business. The now-disrupted AnyProxy and 5socks services are prime examples. Operating since the early 2000s, they ran botnets of old routers and sold subscriptions granting proxy access to other criminals. In a 2025 FBI-led takedown (Operation “Moonlander”), authorities seized these networks.

Court filings reveal the operators built two proxy networks by infecting thousands of home routers worldwide since at least 2004. They advertised roughly 7,000 proxy IPs and collected around \$46 million in subscriber fees over the years. In essence, a lone criminal could pay a monthly fee and have their traffic routed through dozens of real home IPs, thereby hiding their own device’s identity.

These cases show how consumer devices are being weaponised. Often, the targeted hardware is beyond its support life: old “end-of-life” routers or outdated smart gadgets with known vulnerabilities. Criminals exploit these weaknesses to install proxy malware.

As one Lumen report put it, the malware “steals bandwidth… without impacting end users” to create a stealthy proxy service. The average consumer might not even notice anything amiss. But from a security standpoint, this vast pool of home-based IP addresses is a goldmine for attackers.

The Law Enforcement Challenge

All these advances present a growing challenge for defenders. Traditional security tools rely heavily on IP reputation and traffic patterns. But if malicious traffic blends in with legitimate user behaviour, automated tools struggle to distinguish it. Seret notes bluntly that even large datasets can’t untangle good from bad traffic in these mixed nodes. And because residential proxies use so many different ISPs and geographic locations, an organisation’s blacklist of “bad” IPs becomes far less effective. A Trend Micro study explains that the wide availability of legitimate-looking home IPs has “diminished” the value of blocklists, forcing a shift toward more sophisticated detection methods.

For investigators, attribution becomes a maze. Ronnie Tokazowski of Intelligence for Good points out that if an attack appears to come from the same IP range as a company’s employees, it’s nearly impossible to determine who’s behind it.

In practice, law enforcement often ends up chasing ghosts. Takedown requests to internet service providers are futile when the “bad” traffic routes through dozens of unwitting participants. Even when proxy networks are exposed, dismantling them does not solve the underlying issue. Proxies have become a fundamental part of the internet, used by everyone.

Some progress has been made through international operations. The FBI and other agencies have disrupted major proxy botnets and charged their operators (as with AnyProxy and 5socks), but new ones emerge quickly.

Each takedown reveals only part of the bigger picture. After Moonlander, for instance, Lumen’s analysts warned that similar networks remain hidden, often “cloaked” within ordinary traffic. And because many proxies reside on equipment whose owners have long since stopped updating it, the problem persists at the root of the consumer internet.

A Digital Arms Race

The rapid rise of residential proxy abuse underscores a simple reality: the tools available to criminals are evolving faster than defenders’ playbooks. Cybercriminals have created an invisibility shield that even sophisticated security operations struggle to penetrate. By turning millions of homes into unwitting traffic mixers, they’ve gained the upper hand.

Experts caution that stopping this trend will not be easy. There are no quick fixes. Seret stated that even shutting down one proxy service will not end the problem, because new ones can quickly emerge using fresh devices.

In the meantime, organisations and law enforcement must adapt. Analysts recommend strengthening endpoint defences—by securing routers, IoT devices, and employee hardware—and developing more advanced behavioural analysis to detect anomalies beyond just IP addresses.

Until those defences catch up, much of the internet’s dirty work will remain hidden in the crowd of ordinary traffic. As one cybersecurity team put it, malicious activity “could be hiding right under our noses, disguised as ordinary digital life.”

The post IF Insights: How cybercriminals mask malicious web traffic appeared first on International Finance.

“Positioned itself as a refuge from X, the site formerly known as Twitter. For nearly two decades, Twitter had been considered the internet’s town square, chaotic and often rancorous but informative and diversely discursive. Then, after the tech billionaire turned Trump backer Elon Musk acquired the platform, in October of 2022, it devolved into a circus of right-wing conspiracy theories. Liberals began fleeing, and Bluesky in turn accumulated more than ten million users by the fall of 2024, making it one of the fastest-growing social networks. But the post-election influx proved to be of a different order, turning Bluesky into what one tech blogger compared to a Macy’s at the start of Black Friday sales,” The New Yorker summed up things with these words.

The platform has been grappling with a notable challenge: a unique problem with detecting humour, something that has personally affected internet personality Amy Brown.

What are we talking about?

Amy Brown was not yelling. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t vomiting. However, on Bluesky, she claimed to be doing all three at once. What was the reason? During a February business trip to Ohio, Brown’s husband stopped by a Walgreens (American pharmacy store chain). He told her that the prices here were lower than in California, where they live.

Because of the price difference, she posted that she was crying, screaming, and throwing up. However, the “joke problem” kicked in, as she was told by several Bluesky users that she was exaggerating and that no one could possibly care that much. While the replies were accurate (as they tried to invoke the basic laws of human body functions), they all missed the point: she was referring to one of the most popular sayings on the internet: one that is so widely used that it has its own Spotify compilation name.

Brown faced a unique challenge with humour detection that anyone familiar with Twitter/X and now navigating the younger, more serious social network Bluesky would recognise. Some users struggle to understand jokes, while others seem to deliberately miss the point in order to make a different statement.

Many Bluesky users transitioned from X, a platform where controversial figures were livetweeting the degradation of US infrastructure. This shift represents a much larger issue. However, for those new to Bluesky, the perceived ignorance or self-seriousness of many users can be quite frustrating.

In 2023, Brown, who had previously worked as Wendy’s social media manager, joined Bluesky. After nearly two hours of impersonating Elon Musk on November 4, 2022, her X account was banned. The “incident” occurred soon after X made the paid verification announcement.

Brown changed her display name to “Elon Musk (real)” and her profile picture changed to a picture of a balding business entrepreneur. While she knew her actions on the microblogging website might result in her ban, she accepted the possibility.

Now she believes that there is still a lot of “popular sayings on the internet” kind of humour on Bluesky, but surprisingly many people are perplexed by it. There are factors behind it. Let’s start with the conflict between former Facebook and X users.

Brooklyn-based freelance writer Ashwin Rodrigues said, “Anyone who has spent time on the Everything App is familiar with Twitter’s idiom, which consists of ironic posts, in-group allusions, and platform-specific history. All of that inside jokes and sarcasm were with them when they left X. Former heavy users of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, on the other hand, are used to their own standards of humour. Facebook, at least before it turned into Click FarmVille for engagement bait and ads for strangely specific custom novelty tees, was the opposite of Twitter, which felt like a purposeful way to interact with mostly strangers and that a familiar face might make the user feel horrified. Broadcast media also helped Bluesky gain a lot of users.”

“MSNBC featured several segments about the social network, including appearances on Morning Joe, The Weekend, All In With Chris Hayes, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Regular MSNBC viewers who made the leap may not be as accustomed to the tone and manner of online discourse on the shrewd social web,” he remarked.

Then comes the tendency of the technology to display random posts to random users through algorithmically curated content, similar to Bluesky’s Discover feed, which, in Ashwin’s opinion, is worsening the platform’s ability to detect humour.

“When an ex-Twitter user describes in detail what they would do to the Hamburglar if they saw him in person, a Maddow referral on Bluesky may react with real horror and bewilderment. There is an issue between the keyboard and chair, which is also a PEBKAC issue,” he added.

Make humour great again

“A person cannot be made to understand a joke. Anger is the only more pointless reaction. If there is one thing that these diverse groups have in common, it is a distaste for large tech companies run by unpleasant CEOs and a desire to post in the language of their once-favourite platforms. Each person has a unique form of brain damage. I understand people who find the joke hard to understand. However, my sympathies are more with those who are attempting to make them,” Ashwin observed.

A 2024 story from Axios claimed that America is experiencing a gullibility crisis. Nobody can tell if a screenshot is a joke, a lie, AI, or a manipulated image.

Comedian Josh Gondelman, who previously worked as a writer and producer on Desus and Mero and wrote for “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” claims that the political environment has made the problem worse.

According to Gondelman’s memory, at some point during the previous six months, Bluesky reached a user base that was sufficiently active to be entertaining and helpful.

He laughs and adds, “But that also means it hit the tipping point where it’s populated enough to be annoying.”

Ignatz Award-winning cartoonist, author, and illustrator Mattie Lubchansky says she is “mainly a joke-posting kind of person.”

Bluesky’s humour-detection problem is a component of a larger phenomenon she has noticed, which she refers to as “riff collapse.”

The day after the 2025 Oscars, Lubchansky posted, “I haven’t seen any of the Oscar movies this year, nor have I seen any movie ever made. I’m afraid that the people trapped inside the screen will be angry at me for not helping them escape; and once they are out, I will be punished. Anyway, here’s how the awards validated an opinion I already had.”

The ensuing responses were sincere disagreements and opinions regarding Oscar-nominated movies. A few people wanted suggestions for movies. It was suggested, without irony, that she read “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. It appears that only a small number of people realised she was kidding.

According to Lubchansky, she witnesses this kind of “riff collapse” every day and believes it is caused by the surge of new users from Meta and X.

However, there has long been an annoyance with new social media sites. Longtime users will continue to be irritated by newcomers, and networks will hopefully continue to appear.

When people first started using the internet in the early to mid-1990s, it was frequently when they started college. Several new users would sign up for their university’s network in September each year and begin exploring the discussion groups and forums.

Technologist and writer Anil Dash said, “The internet old timers would be very frustrated, because the new people didn’t know the social norms. The exact phenomenon that we are currently witnessing. The majority of internet users dreaded September more than any other month. Everyone can now access the internet at any time thanks to AOL. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the telecom sector and connected homes and businesses nationwide to the internet, coincided with AOL’s rise to prominence. This period was called the Eternal September, with wave after wave of newbies getting online.”

LiveJournal and even Twitter have shown the same pattern. Ashton Kutcher, an investor and actor, challenged CNN in 2009 to see whose account could reach one million Twitter followers first. Kutcher emerged victorious. Due to the stunt, the microblogging platform experienced a surge in users.

As per Lubchansky, people have a chance to consider their response manners at this time.

“Read the whole post before you respond. Take a moment to respond. And if you’re going to respond with a joke, and we’re not friends already, go look and see if somebody’s made it already. Because there’s a really good chance they have,” Lubchansky said.

Meanwhile, Brown considers the block function on Bluesky to be a favour to its recipient.

“If someone comes into my comments and they just really, really don’t understand, usually I just block them so we don’t run into each other again. No hard feelings. I’m not trying to repeat the part of Twitter where the internet makes me mad every day,” she noted.

It’s a different approach than the norm on X, where quote-tweets viciously insulting the original post are part of the platform’s noxious fabric.

Satirical site “The Onion” has the fifth-largest Bluesky account, with over 1.2 million followers. Onion CEO Ben Collins doesn’t mind people replying to jokes in earnest. On the contrary, he says it’s “the funniest part of the internet.”

“It means more people are seeing your jokes. If everyone is immediately breaking out into uproarious applause at your joke, your audience is too small. As someone who regularly used and posted on Twitter for years, I share the frustration when one of my jokey posts is misread or taken as fact. But it also strikes me as unfair to shame someone because they haven’t been slamming their head on the same wall of the internet that I have. Not everyone crawled here from the radioactive sewer of X. As we all get settled along with our new neighbours, it might be helpful to remember that. If not, at least Bluesky has very robust blocking features,” Ashwin concluded.

The post Is Bluesky having a humour block? appeared first on International Finance.