UK Government to Shut Down GSM Networks

An anonymous reader writes "Mobile Gazette is reporting that the British government wants to shut down the UK's GSM networks next year and re-use the frequencies for gambling terminals and a new citizen surveillance program extending the use of the new compulsory ID cards. Although we should perhaps welcome the move away from old-style 2G mobile phone networks, there are perhaps a few worrying things about the new "Big Brother" citizen monitoring that the government is proposing to put in."

Comments

April Fools

[puggsincyberspace]

This has to be another april fools joke.....

Ouch

[taskforce]

The worrying thing is, I didn't bat an eyelid, and totally expected this from my government, until I got to the comments reminding me that it was April Fools Day... (Despite a full knowledege that it was April Fools Day, when I saw the words UK and Government in the same sentance I entered paranoia mode)

Re:Please, for the love of all that you hold dear

[k_187]

the funny part isn't the stories they come up with. its in reading people with no sense of humor's comments

Wouldn't surprise me...

[dyftm]

It wouldn't surprise me if I saw this story in a couple of years time, but not on april fool's day. We really are the lobsters slowly being boiled.

Re:Oh come on

[VJ42]

The only reason not to believe it is because our government would never be able to roll it out so quickly, otherwise given the authoratarian and stupid nature of "New" Labour it hits quite close to the mark. Infact some official probably read that and thought "what a good idea".

Re:Oh come on

[isorox]

If you're going to make up an April Fools hoax at least make it remotely plausible. Only a total muppet could believe this story.

You obviously don't live in the UK. It's a bit of a stretch, but not that much less believable than doing away with parliament next and have ministers pass laws personally.

Email Day

[graystar]

April fool's day is a good day to bury bad news.

no joke

[fermion]

Especially the gambling thing. We seem to be increasingly turning to sin taxes, not as a means to make it more expinsive to 'sin', but as a means to facilitate the behavior that many find unethical. The fact that many high and mighty alleged christian condone this behavior remind me of a person who got angry at the moneychangers in the temple.

One example of this is the Texas State lottery, which exist under the guise of increasing funding to education. Of course funding for education, as a percentage of the Texas budget, has fallen considerable over the past 15 years even as lottery revenue has grown. So what is the new proposal? Well a official named Strayhorn want gambling machines. Now this is the lady that attempted to start the process of a state religion for Texas by attempting to rescind the tax exempt status of a church, the denomination of which has existed from the birth of the United States and in many ways reflects the values of our founding fathers, as many of these men had input in it's creation. Combine this with the fact that the demonination has no profit motive, unlike the megachurches that infest Texas, and one wonders if Strayhorn is primarily concerned with well being of the average Texan or the a personal campaign of religious zelotry in which those that disagree with her liberal view of gambling are ignored.

To be clear I am not concerned if people gamble or not. I do not see how we can justify lottery machines in an time when we no longer have cig machines. How can one say that we can enforce the 18+ limit on tickets any more that cigs? I am not sure that having gambling machines in every corner is a net benifit. Like illegal drugs it take money to feed the habit. But, at the end of the day, in a capatilist conservative country like ours, built on a the standards of minimal government and private enterprise, I suppose the government is in the best position to effecintly run a gambling bussiness.