The Rich Country With the Worst Mobile-Phone Service 72
Economist: Britain has long been a pioneer in telecoms. In 1837 it built the world's first commercial telegraph; the first transatlantic call was placed from London in 1927; in 1992 a British programmer sent the first text message to a mobile phone. Today it lags rather than leads. According to figures provided to The Economist by Opensignal, a research firm, Britain ranks 46th for download speeds out of the 56 developed and developing countries for which there are data. That gives it the worst mobile service in the rich world.
Some of this is due to demand. Over the past three years data usage on mobile devices has doubled as people stream films and play games. The busiest parts of cities often lack mobile reception because the system is at capacity. But mainly it is an issue of supply. British users of 5G are only on it 11% of the time. That puts Britain 43rd out of the 56 countries. This lacklustre performance is caused by a combination of government U-turns, insufficient investment and sclerotic planning.
Some of this is due to demand. Over the past three years data usage on mobile devices has doubled as people stream films and play games. The busiest parts of cities often lack mobile reception because the system is at capacity. But mainly it is an issue of supply. British users of 5G are only on it 11% of the time. That puts Britain 43rd out of the 56 countries. This lacklustre performance is caused by a combination of government U-turns, insufficient investment and sclerotic planning.
Brexit (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure that will fix it, it's definitely the immigrant's fault.
Re:Brexit (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the Native Americans would agree with this sentiment. Those white immigrants have caused all our problems.
That may seem counterintuitive, but remember, most immigrants from the UK to the US will be white, so of course they're welcome.
Again, the Native Americans would take issue with this considering the torture, rapes, murders, general destruction, and genocide done by those white people.
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Says the guy who never bought house built on top of an ancient graveyard.
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an ancient graveyard
No such thing. Until the indigenous people found out that land had value to the white man.
Where I lived as a kid (Seattle area), the area was a frequent battleground for tribal conflicts. They just left the bodies lying where they were. For thousands of years. When our family first moved in, the cool thing to do was to look for arrow heads and bones*.
*Never mind that the neighborhood had been seriously regraded when the housing was built. There was nothing to be found.
Re: Brexit (Score:1, Flamebait)
Yes. If you announce to the world that anyone can just show up and be eligible for free shit, then it will cause all kinds of weird problems as society reallocates its resources to make that free shit happen for the large numbers of people who show up from all over to claim said free shit.
Insurance premiums will go up as hospitals cover the costs of free care to the uninsured. Uber and Lyft prices will rise as state, local, and private charity organizations begin to book rides for migrants who cannot pay fo
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OK, but:
a) since it's "taxpayer-funded", not "free" :
b) are the British telecoms rolling all the additional subscriber funds into additional infrastructure and there's just deployment latency, or is the whole program a massive cash-grab from the Treasury and they intend to dash the economy upon the shoals?
I can see how the country will quickly go bankrupt but are the telecomms also?
Or is the government screwing the telecomms out of funds like the taxpayers?
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All the cell companies brought back roaming charges the instant Brexit was official.
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All the cell companies brought back roaming charges the instant Brexit was official.
All except O2.
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Lebara still do free roaming, and are about as bad as the rest of them for UK coverage and speed. Cheap too.
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No, that's wrong. Why can't you do a search before posting, or do you just not care? O2 is one of the big 4 operators in the UK and never introduced a roaming charge. The other 3 charge approx £2/day.
https://www.uswitch.com/mobile... [uswitch.com]
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So only 75% of the big telecoms brought back roaming. Sounds much better that way I suppose.
Surprised! (Score:4, Informative)
I thought for sure it would be Canada!
Re: Surprised! (Score:1)
Canada is the worst.... (Score:2)
Huawei infrastructure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
.. was banned from use (because their eavesdropping is worse than the 5-Eyes or whatever), and so the majority of 5G-based installations were halted in their tracks. We now have the worst 5G in the developed world.
Great work, guys!
https://www.eureporter.co/busi... [eureporter.co].
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Re: Huawei infrastructure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How the fuck was I modded Troll on this? It's literally what happened. The IQ level on Slashdot really does mirror the general lack of intelligence shown by the US as a whole at the moment.
Enjoy your new era of preventable diseases and right-wing idiocy, fuckwits.
Just the backwash from the election (Score:2)
There seems to be too many people whose happiness or sadness depends on day to day what goes on at the federal government level.
It usually goes away once you get through a few cycles of 'we good, them bad' political party flip-flops in the White House.
Critical identification of agenda based news reporting and agenda based science research is a skill which also helps.
And leaders, legacy media old-timers, career social agitators, career politicians, and entertainers retiring will help. They don't want to giv
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How the fuck was I modded Troll on this?
Calm yourself buddy. There's a simple rule for Slashdot. Never read the same story twice in one day. Some dude modded you troll. It happens, dumb fucks are out there, it is also highly timezone dependent - when it's day time in Russia and China you see very different moderation on Slashdot compared to day time in the USA.
Always ALWAYS give your post 24 hours (possibly even longer) before you judge how Slashdot as a group reacts to it.
Immediately Guessed the Country (Score:3)
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I live almost in the centre of a reasonably large UK conurbation and mobile coverage is garbage. The infrastructure is a bin fire fuelled by grasping companies overpromising and underdelivering. Still. At least it's not railways, or water companies or...
A large part of this will have been the switching off of the 3G networks recently. Phone call stability has dropped like a brick in my home in the London borough of Reading, it used to be rock solid now I have to hold my head at an unnatural angle or the call drops.
Another part is that the UK has a very dense population. So towers are easily overwhelmed with a lot of people using their phones in a popular area like a town centre, Tesco or Boris' mum. Add to this that a lot of the "speed" in 4 and 5 G co
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The UK has been plundered. Everything of value sold off cheap, the population turned into a cash cow. Many key industries loaded up with debt and asset stripped.
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Ah, so they caught the American Disease? Thatcher and Reagan marked the beginning of the end for the Anglo-American Empire.
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Indeed, it started with Thatcher and never ended.
The water industry and the railways were all sold off under her, and are now in terrible shape. Water in particular was loaded up with debt and asset stripped, with some companies now on the edge of bankruptcy and demanding more public funds and bill rises.
Dying shit country (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No idea which country you're in, but the standard of living in the UK is still far higher than the vast majority of the world, so that's a little strong.
https://oecdbetterlifeindex.or... [oecdbetterlifeindex.org]
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... and falling for most people.
Re: Dying shit country (Score:3)
Yes, Putin's attack which became known as brexit succeeded brilliantly. Which reminds me of a story...
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Hardly necessary, Britain, like the US, has enough domestic enemies that foreign ones just have to sit back and watch the show. Any country that rejects dreams of advancing into the future for fantasies of resurrecting the past glories is on its way down.
Perhaps not a surprise (Score:2)
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It's an interesting dichotomy, several countries in Africa were rolling out 5G wireless before anyone in Europe. Phone-based banking was common in Latin America long before it was in the US or Europe. Using drones and remote sensors for derivations of "intelligent agriculture" is still more common in Asia than in the 'advanced' countries. China has the most advanced electrical grid in the world, by far. When the cruft of an installed base isn't in the way progress can happen surprisingly rapidly.
Yep (Score:4, Informative)
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"Mexican food" varies dramatically depending on what part of Mexico you're in. Most of the Global South is that way, they haven't had their cuisine homogenized by mega-corporations. Of course if you want to see truly remarkable variety you can always go to Peru where one can travel from rainforest to cloud forest to tundra to grasslands to the driest desert in the world in just a few days, and encounter different foods every time you stop to eat.
Is cellular the only wireless data? (Score:2)
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I was thinking about this myself. I live in South California, our cable isp Cox.com has wifi built into the router/cable modem combo they provide. Anyone that has credentials for cox.com can sign into one of those wifi networks for high speed access.
If we had more residential and business mixed zones I imagine the strategy John mentions would work well for everyone.
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You're talking about (gasp!) investing money which could instead go into executive bonuses and stock buy-backs! Heresy!
All mobile phones companies are private enterprise (Score:2)
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Airwaves in virtually every country are treated as a public asset, and the UK government oversaw auctions for access to 5G bands. As ever with the Tories, they royally fucked it up, just as they’ve done with the NHS, education, transport, planning, energy investment, the courts, the prisons, even fucking driving tests, and of course Brexit and the pandemic. They were malicious imbeciles on an unparalleled scale, focused on the interests of a small bunch of ignorant sour old twats, and now they’v
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Apparently, enough people do believe in that. They've been setting 5G towers on fire all around the UK.
So lack of coverage is also due to people just destroying the things.
Of course, it's between that, and 5G causes your brains to fry and other things...
Ringway Manchester [youtube.com] has a whole bunch of 5G hoax videos.
5G tower arson attack [youtu.be]
5G propaganda being distributed [youtu.be]
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Yes, I got a good laugh when I read about the first one they burned. It kinda made me happy in a bad sort of way to know that other countries have stupid people, too.
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I don't think I've ever seen a cell tower in the US which wasn't steel and aluminum, except for antennas mounted on existing buildings. You guys import wood to build towers that will rot and have to be replaced/rebuilt in 20 years? That's bizarre.
Yorkshire City in UK (Score:2)
I live in a small city in Yorkshire and mobile service has gone completely to shit. It seems to get worse every time they upgrade their networks to the latest G. While getting more expensive ever year not cheaper as they used to claim.
The last government ... (Score:2)
... can be blamed for a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.
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... can be blamed for a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.
What makes you think that the last government who has been in power since 2010 and oversaw not only the entirety of the 5G rollout but functionally also a good chunk of LTE-A as well is not to blame?
It was literally the conservatives who voted to fuck with the 5G rollout (on the US's recommendation). Virtually everything currently happening in the UK can be attributed to the policies of the previous government, they were in power for a really REALLY long time.
The should follow Canada's example... (Score:3)
It's all Thatchers fault (Score:2)
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There's so much contention in central London on Three that I can't get data most of the time. I'm hoping a merger might bring the benefits of expanded infrastructure. But I'm not getting my hopes up.
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Britain is rich? (Score:3)
How can you consider the country rich?
P.S. They have the other extremes to. They generally compete with China, the US, and Germany for the most educated. But rich countries don't have the massive uneducated population England has.
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