Forget The Economy Or The Housing Crisis, Now MPs Are Squabbling Over The Quality Of Your Phone Signal

Even though 4G seems to be getting slower...

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by Sophie Wilkinson |
Published on

Politics should always be vaguely interesting but it’s certainly a bit more intriguing when it comes to matters that would affect us on our day-to-day, like Nigel Farage getting upset that the EU want to reduce the blowing capabilities of our hairdryers. Anyway, what's most interesting in the world of politics today?

Sajid Javid, the Culture Minister, wants to improve phone signal across the UK so that dreaded not-spots (places where for love nor money, you just get absolutely no signal) are replaced with areas of perfect signal. You personally might live in a place with perfect signal, or just use wifi, but pity those who live in the 20% of the UK that just doesn't get any signal.

However, the method for avoiding these not-spots (letting people roam between networks) could be used by terrorists to evade capture, warns the home secretary Theresa May.

In a letter to Javid that has been part-published by The Times, May warns that this national roaming ‘could have a detrimental impact on law enforcement, security and intelligence agency access to communications data and lawful intercept’.

This might not sit well with civil liberties campaigners, who don’t want the police to listen in on them, and it might not sit well with those people who just want better signal. If it makes it any better for them, it turns out 4G is slowing down anyway. A new report from Which? says that after looking at the signal quality of 39,000 users, 4G speeds have halved in a year. If you live in one of these dreaded not-spots, maybe it’s worth sitting down and reading a book by candlelight or something (or getting a great wifi connection so you can easily read The Debrief).

Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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