How has remote working impacted Britain’s mobile networks?

I agree with you, Phil. I am on the landline for two or three hours most days, usually talking to other people on their landline. Reception is good and the phone is convenient and comfortable.

I am sorry to hear that there are transmission difficulties for mobile phones. Somebody rang me this afternoon on her mobile and it was a struggle to make out what she was saying. She was obviously twirling around – as they do – and wandering in and out of a good signal. A mobile phone is a good reserve device but I still prefer to use the landline.

Those working from home are likely to be using the mobile phone provided by their employer, for calls and a variety of other purposes. Kevin has explained that the increased demands on the mobile networks including increased use for work and leisure appears to causing problems.

Ideeed – It shows how much we lack in resilience, how unprepared we are for doing things differently, and how poor the mobile network coverage is outside the main concentrations of people.

Over the years the balance of phone tariffs, for both landline and mobile, has changed from variable costs [call charges] to fixed costs [line rental, network charges] so many people have abandoned the landline as an unecessary expense, but it has its uses if your home is being turned into an office or other form of workplace. I would expect employers to contribute towards the extra costs of staff working from their own home – heating and energy, telephone bills, postage, other resources and to develop sensible HR and H&S policies to regulate it.

I am not convinced that working from home will continue at anything like the present level after the emergency. It is very disruptive of normal family life, most UK homes do not have enough space to set aside a room for use as an office, and even ‘paperless’ functions seem to generate a need to produce and store documents. From a management perspective it is not an ideal arrangement as contact and interaction is greatly reduced. I would imagine it could give rise to its own stresses and working difficulties.

I can see part-time home-working increasing but if everyone wants to be absent from the office on Fridays the pressure on public transport on the other working days will not diminish.

So many jobs require attendance at a particular place hospital, shop, school] or involvement in a particular activity with fixed or special equipment [farming, manufacturing, service industry] that home working is an irrelevance for most workers, but as usual tthe metro-centric media think the commuting classes are the only people who matter.

There have been plenty of people pushing for improvements in the mobile network and every year we see improvements in coverage. The current situation was unexpected but may help push the mobile networks to improve capacity.

I see part-time home working (say one or two days a week) as a way of making a worthwhile reduction in commuting, but that’s a subject for another Convo.

I agree with your final paragraph, Wavechange, but feel it is fair to say here that unless the infrastructure for proper connectivity across all parts of the country is brought up to a good standard in the near future we cannot address the commuting issue, whether it’s by car or train, and its attendant problems of emissions, pollution, energy demand and safety.

Throughout our discussions I’ve been supportive of improvements to the infrastructure, John. I suspect that it might be more useful to invest in providing better 4G coverage than venturing into 5G in selected locations.

The current lockdown has approximately halved the nitrogen dioxide pollution by reducing use of transport. Reducing commuting will take a lot more than providing reliable mobile networks and fast broadband. We need to get more people within walking or cycling distance from work. The number of people walking and cycling during the coronavirus outbreak is encouraging and maybe this might lead to less commuting.

Yes, that’s right, but there is no coherent dispersal policy at present to reduce the impact of the conurbations.

It’s motor traffic that causes the emissions and heavy pollution Commuting by train doesn’t cause much but is already full to capacity.

I can’t see that there is much more to say in this particular Conversation.

The amount of energy used in operating the internet is huge, as you say Phil. My suggestion is to charge customers on the basis of use rather than have unlimited tariffs and put an end to energy-intensive activities such as bitcoin mining.

Those working at home will probably have installed a VPN to access the servers belonging to their employer. A friend who works for DWP has been telling me about this and I used a VPN for several years before I took early retirement.