The Broadband 50 to Watch: Influential, Innovative and Disruptive Leaders Connecting the World

Life is full of contradictions, and so is the Internet. One of those contradictions is that there are more people online than ever before – and yet unequal access to the Internet is starker than ever.

According to data gathered by Cisco Systems, the world will have 5.3 billion Internet users by 2023. The population that year is forecast to be around 8.1 billion. In the US alone, according to the FCC, there are nearly 17 million school children who lack the Internet at home. While there is a lot of work left to shrink the digital divide, there is also another undisputed truth about broadband: The more we have, the more we want.

The global average broadband speed continues to grow and will more than double from 2018 to 2023, from 45.9 Mbit/s to 110.4 Mbit/s, according to Cisco. By 2025, 34% of North American broadband homes are forecast to subscribe to speed tiers above 500 Mbit/s, according to Omdia. So those are the two extremes: Some aren’t connected at all. Some can’t get enough. All of it poses a staggering opportunity ahead for the communications executives in this space.

To help navigate what’s happening in this part of the global communications marketplace, we’ve compiled the Broadband 50 to Watch, a list of influential leaders, innovators and disrupters who are connecting the world in 2021. We’re keeping an eye on these executives and think you should, too, as they’re moving this part of the industry forward. Below is a chart documenting the list of 50 industry leaders.