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UK 4G Coverage Worse Than In Romania and Peru, Watchdog Finds (theguardian.com)
Britain's National Infrastructure Commission has said in a major new report that the country's mobile phone coverage is worse than that in Albania, Panama, Peru and Romania, as users are able to connect to the internet barely half the time. The report also found that the country's data volumes are four to five times less than the U.S. and Japan. The Guardian reports: The commission, chaired by Andrew Adonis, the crossbench peer and former Labour minister, said the government must now ensure that the next generation of 5G spectrum does not have the failures that dog 4G coverage. "Britain is 54th in the world for 4G coverage, and the typical user can only access 4G barely half the time," Adonis said. "Our 4G network is worse than Romania and Albania, Panama and Peru. Our roads and railways can feel like digital deserts and even our city centers are plagued by not spots where connectivity is impossible. That isn't just frustrating, it is increasingly holding British business back as more and more of our economy requires a connected workforce." In a list of recommendations, it argued there should be a new dedicated cabinet minister in charge of the UK's digital future, ensuring mobile connectivity is competitive with the rest of the world. On top of that, it called for ministers and Ofcom, the media regulator, to work together to ensure a set of standards known as a universal service obligation no later than 2025. The crucial priorities for coverage are key rail routes, major roads such as motorways and all towns and cities, Adonis said.
UK Worse than in Romania and Peru, Watchdog finds.
Service =
Healthcare
Public Transport
Education
Basic Reading Skills
Xenophobia
Distrust in political system
Shall we make this a game?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Maybe another Brexit will solve the issue?
I know it's a joke, but Britain actually has one of the best dental services in the world. Much higher ranked than the US.
Romania is one of the most advanced countries with regard to internet infrastructure. I'm paying 30 euros for a guaranteed 90/90 Mbit optical cable business connection, including 8 IPv4.
Residential net speeds are mostly Gbit, with actual Gbit p2p transfer rate within city limits, and 100 Mbit outside (nation wide, essentially only limited to the bandwidth of the server one is accessing).
Also IPv6 adoption advanced furthest, several of the solutions are being discussed internationally for wider adoption (don't ask me details, don't know much about it - but I'm a Romanian living in Germany with friends in tech management of one of the two largest Romanian providers).
It has helped, actually. The EU has been trying to get mobile phone operators to treat their customers with some civility (abolishing EU roaming, lowering prices, data protection, etc.). It has been improving for years, and now without the EU there will be next to nothing to stop them getting worse and worse. British regulators will have enough on their hands as it is taking over their local duties from the EU to be capable enough to curtail this. It's not going to be pretty.
With the snooper's charter and digital rights acts, there'll be nothing to look at on your snazzy 4G connection anyway - the government will have censored it all.
In soviet Britain, Internet looks at you!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
It helps people working when going between offices, staying productive whilst mobile. It helps businesses that get customers who are on-the-go.
Whereas it might not affect most people, or most businesses, there is a tangible loss to be had. There is also the whole "quality of life" thing for people who do want to use it for entertainment as well. Quality of life is important too.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Europe is so far behind the US in wireless technology it isn't even funny. They don't even produce any phones. So backward!
When your existing infrastructure;
1. Is non-existent or uncommon.
2. Is not an incremental step to what is commonly found everywhere in the country already.
3. Does not involve entrenched billion dollar businesses milking the status-quo.
4. Is not governed by decades of government regulation.
So yeah...when countries with far worse infrastructure or practically none get more infrastructure they get the best available making established countries seem to lag. -just look at the UK's train system in comparison to any country that had the luxury adding train infrastructure in the last 30-40 years.
The UK has loads of old infrastructure, established commercial bodies and eye watering regulation. -keeping that in mind (and ignoring the idiocy of brexit) the UK is doing very well.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
They have no need for good coverage anyway - after all, it's just a little island.
I was able to play Clash of Clans on the Eurostar in the Chunnel. I was pretty impressed with that. But yeah, cell data was spotty in urban London which is pretty sad... But I normally have T-Mobile in the USA, so I'm used to it!
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Ok, UK is 54th in the world according to some league table that doesn't seem to get fully published in either of the sources linked in the summary. So who are the 53 higher ranked countries?
For those who couldn't be bothered searching, the full table is here.
EDL won't care as long as the residents of Albania, Panama, Peru and Romania stay in their respective countries to enjoy the better telecomms service.
Especially Romania since the Daily Mail (which they are far, far, far more likely to read than Slashdot) tells them that billions of Romanians enter the UK every day.
I thought that the South Korea was considered to be to gold standard for broadband. Last I heard, they were paying the equivalent for $50 a month for Gigabit level residential access and around the same price for 50 Megabit 4G wireless broadband.
Of course, that's a hell of a lot easier in a country that small with a population that dense.
If it helps to soften the blow I live in a city, albeit a small one, and can't get mobile phone reception enough to work the credit card machine at work in the city centre. We also have a sight line from our house to a mobile mast and can't get good reception there. I think we must have secret government research facilities oro something that interferes with the signals.
Well, in Britain I used to have a mobile plan with 200min/unlimited text/500MB for 6.90GBP. Since I've moved to Canada, the cheapest decent plan I could find is 40CAD. Sure it has more of everything but my usage for the last month was 44min/19text/53MB. Nevermind, I am sure Canada is a world leader in 4G! Hurray!
> billions of Romanians enter the UK every day.
Here's where the Romanian diaspora is currently: Italy (1.2M), Spain (800K), USA (650K), Germany (335K), Israel (220K), Ukraine (150K - historical reasons) and finally UK (160K). So UK is the 7th.
My mistake, UK is 6th.
Who are these lucky people for whom 4G works half the time!?
The only places 4G - or mobile web access at all for that matter - works for me is pretty much inside an O2 shop.
Anywhere else - central London, Greater London, in the country, in my house, in other city and town centres - no chance. On the train - ha, that's a good one.
I'm still not entirely convinced there isn't a problem with the 4G hardware on my iPhone. Been in a O2 shop twice now to check it - as I say, works fine in their shops, but hardly anywhere else.
Discussed it many times with O2 online chat support. Oh boy, what a frustrating experience. ("Support: Please reset your network settings on the phone, then Internet will work. Me: My problem is not that it doesn't work - it's just slow [ bangs head on wall etc ] ")
Never did get round to taking it to an Apple store to get it checked - always felt Apple would say it was O2's problem.
Britain also does well compared to the EU
Nullius in verba
It wasn't long ago that England was the most powerful nation in the world.
What many people don't realize is that if England were a state, it would be 51st, below Mississippi, in terms of economic output. (England is 83.9% of the United Kingdom by population.) If you expanded your measurement to include Great Britain (the UK excluding Northern Ireland), Great Britain would be 50th, right above Mississippi.
What I expect, as the UK completes its separation from the EU, is for the kingdom's role in the world to fall to something more in line with the role of one US state. As such, I'd expect to see measures indicative of economic strength like this one to lag. I'd actually be quite delighted to welcome the United Kingdom to the United States. The only thing that the British people would lose in joining the United States as our 51st state would be titles of nobility.