UK Telecoms Strategy written by a Degrowth Communist

Fixed Internet

While there will be a continuing trend away from fixed-line broadband, and towards mobile data for a lot of people, I do think we need to continue investing in fibre-optic broadband across the nation anyway. Not just for business use, but personal use as well. When we rely on the internet for so much, you need to have a backup. Whether fixed line broadband is your primary way of connecting at home or your backup for a strong 5G connection (lucky you, I get 1mbps on 4G at home); I think it’s wise for us all to have two types of connectivity. There will always be a need for a backup connection for inevitable periods of downtime for one of them. Or hopefully just one anyway. I remember seeing a story a while ago which talked about Vodafone / Three partnering with CityFibre; a fixed-line broadband infrastructure company, which I thought was odd. In research for this article, I found that there’s been a further announcement just last month. Hopefully the mobile data and fixed-line broadband systems remain independent of each other as much as possible. The last thing we need is both going down at the same time whenever there’s an issue.

So, clearly I think fixed line broadband is incredibly important to maintain. What else needs to change?

You might have noticed that there are multiple infrastructure companies that roll out their own infrastructure for our national broadband network. The main ones are Openreach (owned by BT), Virgin Media, and CityFibre. These are privatised companies rolling out separate, competing networks. And if you switch between them, you get a different cable to your house and another hole in the wall. Meanwhile there are significant numbers of people still dealing with substandard broadband in terms of both speed and reliability. Genius isn’t it?

I would obviously nationalise these companies immediately to eliminate profiteering, simplify the whole system, and most importantly provide lower bills and better connectivity to customers. I don’t know whether I’d continue with all three of their technologies in the long run. There may be benefits of each which could be combined successfully. Virgin has their below ground fibre-optic cable system; CityFibre as far as I know always use an above ground system of poles to run their cables; and Openreach operates the most diverse system with a lot of copper wire broadband still in use. This is because of the Ofcom Universal Service obligations which apply only to them, and KCOM, which is a small infrastructure company in Kingston upon Hull that’s mostly irrelevant as far as the national picture is concerned. The fact that the government force a single, privatised infrastructure subsidiary of BT to rollout broadband to everywhere in the country (especially rural areas) is insane. There is no financial incentive for them to build fibre infrastructure in remote areas, so they’re not going to do it obviously. That’s the exact reason you need public sector investment by the government to make sure everyone gets a good service. This is the same problem with bus services in remote areas for example. You can’t rely on private business to cut into their own profits to provide services where there’s no money to be made. Also, the fact that Virgin Media and CityFibre are exempt from this is laughable to me. It means they are free to build infrastructure in areas they expect to be the most profitable for them; while Openreach is stuck rolling out copper infrastructure in the middle of the countryside where they’re making losses. That’s not to say I feel sorry for BT. Obviously not. But it’s necessary to point out the unfairness. The government should either nationalise all three companies, or add VM and CF to the Universal Service Obligation. The current status quo is just a total nonsense.

The final area I want to talk about with regard to “fixed-line broadband” is regarding satellite internet, or Starlink in particular, since that’s the one we all know of. I know that there are people living in rural areas who can really benefit from satellite internet. However, it’s really tough to do any kind of nationalisation with a global company like that. It also seems as if it’s operating in a Virgin Media type scenario, in which they monopolise the ability to run service on the network. If we could find a way to globally nationalise one satellite internet network, you could potentially solve the issue of poor rural connectivity very effectively. And you could avoid a situation in which multiple satellite networks end up being launched, contributing even further to the space junk problems we have. Space junk increasingly impacts important Astronomical work, and poses an increasing danger to astronauts on board the ISS; and potentially to other satellites that could be hit by debris.

For these reasons, my preferred solution to rural connectivity would be to roll out 4G data widely in those areas to blanket cover everywhere that’s still relying on a copper wire ADSL connection. 4G requires less towers than 5G, and the connection speed is still more than good enough for most people. Especially if you’re coming from unreliable 10mbps or less fixed-line broadband service. The towers may be a bit ugly in certain places, but you can disguise them, and 4G signals in areas with less signal traffic tend to reach a long way. Therefore it should cause minimal impact to the landscape. I think it’s the right way to go now, because laying fibre-optic cable to every remote location is a laborious process and probably not worth bothering with, even if you’re not restrained by the profit motive.

Starlink are also working on a mobile SIM type solution, which is interesting for the future as the technology matures. However, it presents all the same issues that I previously mentioned. While the idea of satellite internet being available on phones is compelling; just as fixed address satellite internet is; I wouldn’t support it under its current ownership and operating model.

Mobile

I think right now, there’s not much good to say about the UK mobile networks. As with home broadband; our mobile system is a mess of greed and nonsensical infrastructure; where you have 3 networks (because of multiple mergers) covering the same areas multiple times. And at the same time, you have other areas with barely any coverage at all. Especially when it comes to the 5G rollout. This is the first thing that must change. We need to nationalise and merge the networks, so we can give everyone in the country better connectivity and lower prices. I mentioned the nonsensical Ofcom Universal Service Obligations for home broadband. When it comes to the mobile networks, we also don’t have an ideal situation, as you’d expect. But they do have a series of deals with the operators which attempt to cover the UK land mass between them, and especially in order to cover remote areas. There are also contracts with Ofcom regarding parts of the spectrum. o2 has a licence with them to use the 800Mhz band of the spectrum. In return for this acccess, o2 must cover 98% of the country for indoor data. That would suggest that the 800Mhz band is a desirable one to have exclusive access to, although I’m far from an expert on this. From my perspective, they should all be one nationalised company anyway. There should be no squatting on parts of the spectrum at all. We all deserve access to a full, national network with great, high speed, reliable coverage.

With regard to the current experience of being a mobile customer in the UK; we have the main operators all fighting to rip off customers the most effectively. Below them, we also see that three of the four (if you count both Vodafone and Three separately) companies operate their own low cost carriers (VOXI, SMARTY, and giffgaff). The fact that people accept the need for these “flanker brands” to exist in the firstplace is absurd and just goes to show how broken the system is. If Ofcom did their job correctly, the main carriers (EE, o2 and Vodafone / Three) would have to treat their customers with respect and charge them the kinds of prices you currently get from these flanker brands, along with independent MVNOs like Lebara and EcoTalk. Unfortunately though, Ofcom have failed to hold these corporations accountable, and therefore we must act and take them into public ownership. There’s no shortage of reasons to do that. As far as how you would go about it; I don’t know whether you’d go to the effort of rebranding them as one state owned company, or do the change more subtly - keeping everything the same other than the coverage and the pricing. But certainly this current model is not fit for purpose, and has been allowed to continue on for far too long.

Another aspect of mobile data I’d like to talk about is 5G home broadband. There are some parts of the country where you can get really good 5G, that’s much faster than the fixed line broadband in those areas. As a consequence of this, there are people who use a 5G sim and a specific 5G router as their home broadband system. This is fine, and can be pretty cost effective compared to fixed-line broadband in those places. And there are also options that don’t tie you into a long contract and instead offer a 30 day rolling option. As you might expect me to say; if you go this route, you should look into using a different network (as long as this privatised shitshow persists) for your phone than your 5G broadband. Make sure you give yourself that contingency in case you have significant downtime. If you can anyway. There may be areas in which Vodafone / Three might be strong, and EE and o2 are both unusable for example. In those types of cases you may not have a choice. But definitely aim to hedge your bets if you have the coverage to do so. It doesn’t matter if the second network is a lot worse. As long as it can give you a slow speed in a reliable fashion, then that’s good enough. It would be for me. Too bad that’s not an option here living in a 4G signal black spot with no 5G (and we live a mile or so outside a major town centre). If the networks weren’t privatised, and weren’t financially incentivised to not expand 5G infrastructure properly outside of cities; then that wouldn’t be the case of course.

TV

TV is in a really interesting place right now. Before I get into how I would change the way television works in the country, I want to offer an anecdote regarding my personal TV history; to help me set up the current state of TV generally and what I think should come next.

Our family have been Virgin Media customers (Cable & Wireless and NTL: before that) since the late 90s; but we just decided to finally leave and go elsewhere. While this obviously impacts the broadband service as well, the change there will be almost imperceptible once the new router is set up. Switching from Virgin’s TiVo service; which they’ve been trying to force us to give up for years at this point, in favour of their own internally developed platform (which I don’t think is very good); to something like Freely however, is a big change. Especially after so long using a TiVo DVR box, and before that NTL: / Virgin’s traditional recording boxes from the 2000s and early 2010s. We will lose the ability to record whatever we want, set series links, and play back without restrictions or time limits. It’s ironic given the name Freely, that we’ll be forced to watch ads and have significantly less control.

So why would we choose to go this route when it’s a downgrade? I think the biggest reason is that the writing is on the wall for cable TV, no matter what we do as customers. The option to have full control of your viewing is going away because the establishment wants it to go away. Not because it’s an inferior way to watch TV. You might think that would be a good reason to stay with VM. But that’s not the only consideration. Cost is a huge one. We’ll probably be set to save somewhere around £80 a month by leaving VM and joining Zen Internet; who are multi award winning for their customer service as well as their broadband’s speed and reliability. There’s also the fact that there isn’t really that much good programming on TV anymore. I’ve almost stopped watching sports entirely these days. Even relatively socialist friendly sports like winter sports and track and field I’ve grown tired of. I think it’s partly the creeping greed in everything. But it’s also just that as the climate keeps getting worse, and we keep doing nothing serious about it; I grow more and more intolerant of people going about their lives as if nothing is happening. And things like celebrating sporting wins as if they’re actually important given what we’re facing as a species really pisses me off.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was watching Celtic football matches regularly on Sky Sports, and endless FIS winter sports on Eurosport and BT Sport / TNT Sports. I watched professional Road Cycling and Mountain Biking. I watched Triathlon. I watched a lot of motorsports pretty recently too. If you’re still a sports obsessed, mainstream culture consumer like I used to be; then of course you should stick with cable TV because it’s the most “affordable” and most convenient way of watching all those subscription paywalled sports. Series links are extremely useful, and TiVo in particular has a lot of functions like wishlist searches that make life very convenient for sports fans. Now that TiVo DVRs are being phased out by VM, I can’t be fully sure about recommending the successor, their Virgin TV360 service (for the existing V6 boxes previously used with TiVo software). Especially because I don’t have experience using it. But when you consider that Sky have phased out satellite TV and DVRs entirely for new customers, in favour of streaming; and no one else is offering anything other than streaming solutions, which are not as reliable as cable; it’s a pretty safe bet to go with TV360 until they kick you off that too. And that could be a while yet. It’d definitely be worth it if you could get 5-10 years out of it, and it’s anywhere near as reliable and functional as TiVo has been for us for over a decade.

For us though, it’s definitely the right move to simplify and go with Freely via the Manhattan Aero TiVo box. It means we get to keep TiVo, albeit in a different form. It’s a system which combines the functionality of most other streaming boxes on the market, with a familiar looking TiVo remote, and the Freely Internet TV service built in as well. Freely, if you aren’t aware, is essentially the replacement for the aerial based Freeview digital terrestrial service, and Freesat (which is basically Freeview for disgruntled former Sky customers). I think it’s definitely the future of TV for the vast majority of people; and it’s set to dictate the country’s live TV viewing habits the way Freeview has done since it launched almost 25 years ago. Internet connections have gotten stable enough now (unless you live in one of those aforementioned countryside ADSL areas) to make it viable. Especially now we have catchup services where every program is available on iPlayer or one of the other broadcaster’s equivalents. If you do happen to have an Internet outage, or power outage even (and particularly if you have a backup data connection); you’re not going to miss a show. It wasn’t that long ago really when you had to watch everything live, and if you missed it, hard luck.

That reminds me though. There have been proposals from the BBC to fold Channel 4 and Channel 5’s on demand services, as well as ITV X into iPlayer to make things as easy as possible for users. I would personally love to see that in future. Right now there’s too many different apps, accounts and watch lists to deal with. It’s not an elegant system. Especially for older and less tech savvy people. But also for everyone else too. It’s just a hassle to have to deal with when it could all be streamlined.

Going back to Freely, and what I like (and dislike) about it; a big positive thing for me is just having a traditional TV experience in addition to the on-demand apps. Channel numbers and unified TV guides are nice things to have, and they always will be. Sometimes, you just want to turn on the TV and go to the channel number of your news channel of choice for example. You don’t want to faff around with apps on your phone or tablet, or even on your standard TV streaming box or stick. You want to type in the 3 digit number and for the channel to change. With Freely, you have that, and it’s protected long into the future, which is great.

Manhattan Aero 4K Streaming Box Mini-Review

While I’m on the subject, I might as well give my full thoughts on the Manhattan Aero, since I’ve used it extensively for the last couple of months. It’s definitely a good device overall that I’m enjoying using. I’ve relegated my Apple TV 4K to basically a YouTube and Twitch (and a few other more niche applications like Vimeo) machine for the most part. I do have a soft spot for TiVo, I will admit. But it definitely is a very compelling option for a lot of people. The BBC iPlayer app in particular is much better on TiVo OS than it is on Apple’s tvOS. Having said that, I must admit it hasn’t all been plain sailing. I’ve encountered a couple of annoying issues. Firstly, the menus can be a bit slower to react than I’d like or expect in a brand new device. My Apple TV is pretty old now and it’s much snappier than the Manhattan. I hope they can keep improving that in software, because the hardware should be more than capable enough.

Then there’s the remote. I had some issues with the remote batteries not being recognised (both in bluetooth mode, and less often in IR mode). You have to open the battery compartment and wiggle the batteries around a bit; or take one out and put it back in before the remote will respond again. This mainly seems to happen when the device is left in standby for a few days, but it has happened occasionally when left for shorter time periods too. When I tried bluetooth mode again the other day; after sticking with IR for a while, there was an update for the remote which it installed quickly. I don’t know if that update is intended to solve this particular problem, but it seems likely. In terms of the remote’s design, it’s less curvy than the VM TiVo remote (but still comfortable), and it’s noticeably lighter. But it does feel quite cheap and it doesn’t feel good to hold for longer periods of time, as the old TiVo peanut remote does; even after many years of wear and tear. Some of the plastics around the edge of the new remote’s seams are quite rough and uncomfortable to the touch. It feels like a manufacturing defect. With this new one, they’ve used matte plastics; but I wish they had just stuck with the more traditional glossy plastic they previously used. The buttons use a similar material and they just don’t feel that great. They may get better over time, but I don’t remember the old peanut remote buttons ever feeling like this when new. The matte finish also makes my hand sweat more than the old remote did. Maybe you didn't need to know that, but I think it’s an important thing if a remote doesn’t feel right.

The only thing you’re really gaining with this new one (aside from some shortcut buttons) is voice control, which I probably won’t use much, due to wanting to maximise battery life. I do sometimes use it on Apple TV though. Because the remote for that device is rechargeable, it makes you feel more comfortable using voice commands more; even though I do use rechargeable AAs with the TiVo remote. I know I can just plug the Apple Remote in and keep using it. Whereas with the TiVo remote, I have to take the batteries out and charge them separately. It’s a small thing, but it makes a difference to usage habits.

Overall I do recommend the Manhattan Aero. If you decide to get one, (or a similar device); hopefully yours will have a smoother and more comfortable remote with more reliable connectivity out of the box. As long as you’re aware of and prepared for the slight drawbacks I’ve mentioned; you’ll really enjoy using it. And obviously there are many TVs with built in Freely, and other streaming boxes out on the market and in the works, so you will have more options available to you down the line.

I do think that while Freely in its current incarnation undoubtedly takes some things away from long time cable customers; what it and the Manhattan box with TiVo OS offer is a good solution for the time we live in. It feels like they have everything the vast majority of people will ever need, in a well presented package with good software (really could do without the occasional ads that play on the main menu though when left idle - that’s a bugbear of mine). And I think really these drawbacks that we see in terms of not being able to record or skip ads will no longer matter in a future where we have a nationalised TV system. A situation in which we get rid of ads, pay TV, rip-off sports and other premium channels; and we get back to a more basic way of doing things.

I remember what it was like having cable TV in 1997 as a 10 year old. Coming home from school and having this amazing selection of cartoons and a dizzying array of other shows and channels at my fingertips was so exciting. Nowadays, there’s almost nothing on cable TV worth watching outside of sports. It’s all repeats, or FAST channels; or channels that aren’t real channels, and instead just link to an on-demand app; taking you away from the TV experience you want. That’s actually how it dawned on me that cable TV was on the way out. At a certain point, every new channel was just a link to an on-demand service.

Pretty much all the good stuff now is on the free-to-air channels (which we can easily nationalise and remove ads from) and streaming services. I don’t personally care about paid streaming services, but the Manhattan box and TiVo OS should have you covered if you do. Although I’d recommend getting an Apple TV as well if you’re serious about streaming outside of casual use. I probably wouldn’t recommend the Aero if you aren’t planning to use it primarily for Freely and the catch-up services of the free-to-air broadcasters. Speaking of free-to-air broadcasters, I don’t give a fuck if Sky / Comcast buy ITV, as has been recently announced. We will just take it back and nationalise it. Not that I watch ITV. I hate ITV. But some people seem to like it. So we’ll do it for them.

Radio

I’m not going to profess to having been the most dedicated live radio listener at any point in my life. But I listen and have listened enough to form some opinions on how I’d like radio to be managed in future. The first thing would be that large commercial stations don’t need to exist, and I’d get rid of them. There’s definitely something to be said for local, community funded and run stations, offering something unique. But as far as the Globals and the Bauers (Rayo) of this world, I’d get rid of them; unless there were stations that were really offering something unique that none of the BBC stations manage to. In which case, I’d nationalise those. But the more generic stations like Capital, Absolute Radio and LBC I’d get rid of. Examples of stations I’d keep would be perhaps Kerrang or Radio X, whose target audiences aren’t really catered to that well by BBC Radio 1 or 6 Music. Maybe we need a Radio 7 for hard rock and metal?

In terms of broadcasting methods; I was looking up to see when we turned off FM / AM signals, so I could get an idea for when we could look to replace DAB with internet radio (and free up some of the spectrum). To my surprise, I found that analogue is still fully in operation until 2030. I’m sure I heard that before, but forgot because it seemed too bizarre to be true. Especially because the analogue TV signal was turned off in 2012! Such was the enormity of Freeview’s success.

I haven’t used analogue radio for a long time, but it was always a poor experience. I can’t imagine it’s got any better in the last two decades plus, since I last tried to listen to a football game on 5 Live. I was using an old Argos mini stereo system in my room, with a thin cable aerial Blu-Tac’d high up on the wall. You get a lot of interference. I definitely did that day. I could barely hear the match. I’m not sure why anyone would be using analogue now when DAB isn’t expensive. Most cars for the last 10 or so years have come with DAB tuners, and that’s probably the main use case for DAB to begin with. I listened to Radio 5 Live (forgive me - I was a brainwashed establishment liberal at the time) every morning from 2016 on my drive to work in my Renault Zoe. So I’m very familiar with how it works. It’s a hell of a lot better than analogue. Outside of a car though, I don’t see why you’d even use DAB honestly. When it’s so easy to ask your smart speaker to play your station of choice, or just use the BBC Sounds or commercial equivalent app to play live radio or on-demand shows. Maybe when you’re out in the middle of nowhere and have an even worse 4G signal than I get in a busy suburban area in West Sussex - then, I guess DAB might make sense. Let’s just keep it then.

I guess the one thing you can say about radio specifically, even in the analogue days, is that we’ve always had one unified network for every provider and every user. That’s pretty cool. It hasn’t been ruined in the same way broadband, mobile and TV networks were. Long live radio. And maybe that’s another reason to keep DAB indefinitely too. To stop radio from being entirely reliant on privatised broadband and mobile data networks for transmission. Although to be clear, that wouldn’t be a problem if my plans are realised. Then it’d all be nationalised and unified. But as I was saying, long live radio!

Conclusion

I think you can sum up this article pretty simply, as I said in the subtitle. You could have just skipped straight here and saved yourself some time actually. Sorry about that. But anyway… The main issue with our telecommunications system overall is the privatisation that has led to a lack of investment in favour of higher profits for shareholders; sky-high bills, mid-contract price rises, terrible customer service; and segmented networks that mean coverage is worse across the country than it needs to be.

It’s really not that hard. Privatisation is just really stupid and driven by incredibly greedy people. It’s always the same story across the economy. Every sector I can think of off the top of my head has been ruined by these ghouls. It’s time to boot them out and stop getting ripped off. If we just use our imaginations, we will all realise that we can do so much better than this.