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UK 4G Coverage Worse Than In Romania and Peru, Watchdog Finds (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the third-world dept.

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.

12 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Hey let's keep going... by Cryacin · · Score: 2, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Hey let's keep going... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      One should point out, whereas there is certainly room for criticism, Britain is better off than the US in every single one of those issues. Not that that is a great target to beat.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:Hey let's keep going... by Tx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's easy to take cheap shots at the UK over Brexit, however in reality the referendum result was about anti-EU sentiment and sovereignty rather than xenophobia. Sure, a small core of the Leave campaign and their supporters are pretty xenophobic, but that is not reflected amongst the population at large. That side of things was given far too much weight by the media and the Remain side, to the detriment of rational debate in the run up to the vote.

      The fact is that the UK is one of the least racist countries in Europe; we are far more multicultural and inclusive than the majority of EU states, and that's unlikely to change post-Brexit in my opinion. Regaining some degree of control over our borders removes the feeling that immigration is something being imposed on us by the EU, which is actually what people resent, not the immigration itself.

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    3. Re:Hey let's keep going... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm also British, and while a lot of racists have taken the leave vote to be a license to come out of the closet, a lot of people who voted to leave are simply fed up with the status quo. Look at the map of voters: in places with strong economies, the vote was for remain, in places with large amounts of poverty the vote was to leave. The core issue is that a significant percentage of the population is fed up with constantly being shafted by those in power. The only tragedy is that they decided to rebel by voting to give more power to the people responsible for those policies.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Hey let's keep going... by Tx · · Score: 2

      Apologies for assuming you were not a fellow Brit then. Sure, some of the racist groups took the Brexit vote as a boost for them, and got temporarily riled up, but I maintain that that isn't reflective of the population at large. Look around Europe; in France, you have a very high likelihood of Le Pen getting into the second round of the Presidential election (and given recent electoral surprises, I wouldn't rule out a win), you have the AFD making huge gains in Germany, Geert Wilders party doing great in the Netherlands despite him being convicted for hate speech, the fortunately overturned election in Austria, etc etc. These are all overtly xenohpobic, and to a significant extent racist parties with wide popular support and real political power. No party with similar views has any significant political power or support here. UKIP is nowhere near as far right as all those guys, and they only have one single MP by defection. The political map speaks for itself.

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    5. Re:Hey let's keep going... by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      That's almost exactly what happened here in the US with Trump. The rural voters who feel disenfranchised because all their factory jobs and such have moved offshore voted for someone who promised to bring them back, but instead he's now installing people who are going to implement policies which will just hurt them even more, and further increase the divide between the rich and poor.

    6. Re:Hey let's keep going... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The result was mostly about immigration and a bit of anti-intellectualism.

      The problem is twofold. First, we don't manage immigration properly. There are some acute problems due to immigration, but we could deal with them if there was the political will. Secondly, for decades certain parts of the media have been blaming immigrants for everything and fear-mongering like crazy. UKIP turned that into a political philosophy, and along with euroskeptics in his own party forced Cameron to have the referendum.

      The anti-intellectualism really got going with the referendum, but UKIP was feeding into it for years before. Facts and reason were saying that immigrants were not the reason it takes weeks to get a GP appointment or that houses are unaffordable, but the inescapable conclusion that flows from that is unpalatable too. It also makes people feel silly when they realize that they fell for the xenophobic, racist click-bait bullshit. So they reject it, and even the political establishment said it was okay to reject it. In a bizarre twist people thought they were sticking it to the intellectuals and the establishment by voting for people like Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.

      You are sort of correct. There is some doublethink going on. People seem to be fine with immigrants they know, who they see integrating and contributing. But they also think that the majority don't do that, and that there are vastly more of them than there really are. Try asking people what proportion of the population are immigrants. The average response I get is around 40%, while the real number is 13% which includes everyone born outside the UK, not just EU migrants.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    7. Re:Hey let's keep going... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The freedom of movement within the EU also has some negative effects. Most people in the UK learn at least some either French or German at school, but often not to a standard required to work in either country, and even if they do then that's only one other country where they can work. Almost everyone in the EU learns enough English to work low-skill jobs in the UK. At the opposite end, most high-skill jobs in the EU only require English. This means that freedom of movement creates opportunities for the high-skill workers in the UK, but increases competition for the lower-skilled jobs. The better-off people have benefitted from the freedom of movement, but the worse-off have not (though the amount to which they've suffered from it has been exaggerated by certain parts of the media).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Bad comparison by getuid() · · Score: 4, Informative

    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).

  3. Re:This happened as a member of the EU by dave420 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Holding British businesses back? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    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
  5. Not surprising by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 2


    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.