All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Featured Article : Dunroamin (in Europe)

Mobile operator EE has become the first to re-introduce roaming charges in Europe from January as a result of the Brexit trade deal that was signed at the end of 2020.

When?

EE says that for those who take out a pay monthly handset or SIM plan from 7 July onward, there will be a daily charge for using their mobile phone in what it defines as the “European roaming zone”, but the new charges won’t apply until January 2022.

Those customers who were already on a pay monthly plan and whose contract started before 7 July 2021 will not be affected by the charges.

Even though UK operators have been allowed to introduce the charges since January 2021, they have chosen not to do so until EE’s decision to break ranks and start introducing them in January 2022.

How Much?

The roaming charge from January 2022 will be a fixed payment of £2 per day. EE customers won’t need to take any action to opt-in.  If a customer’s allowances are used, they’ll be charged £2 for that day, and if the allowances aren’t used, EE says they won’t be charged anything.

From January 2022, those EE customers who have a plan that includes ‘Smart Benefits’ will be able to avoid the £2 daily roaming charge in the EU by using a roaming pass as a Smart Benefit. Alternatively, EE customers can pay £10 per month to have a roaming pass as an add-on which will exempt them from paying the daily roaming charge.

It has been reported that for those travelling for periods longer that the usual week or two-week holidays, 30-day packages will be available.

Limits on Charges

Any UK operators who introduce roaming charges will have to abide by UK laws which place a £45-a-month limit on the amount that customers can be charged for using their mobile data abroad before they have to opt-in for further use that could take them beyond that amount.  Also, UK law states that mobile customers must be informed when they have reached 80 percent and 100 percent of their data allowance, and operators must take “reasonable steps” to stop customers in Northern Ireland who have used a signal from the Republic of Ireland form being charged (although EE isn’t introducing roaming charges for the Republic of Ireland).

Fair Use

Customers on all networks should also be aware that there are likely to be ‘fair use’ limits on how much they can use their phones abroad and UK users could expect to be charged extra for using their phone in another country for more two months in a four-month period (for example). UK operators also have fair use limits for data, beyond which customers can be charged.  For example, O2 customers have a monthly data limit of 25GB, beyond which the charge is £3.50 per GB of data.

Where?

This is a large list of countries (47) where EE’s roaming charges will apply which includes most European holiday destinations such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, France, and Italy.  A full list of these countries can be found on the EE website here: https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/roaming-and-international/using-your-device-abroad/what-impact-will-brexit-have-on-roaming.

EE customers, however, will not face roaming charges to use their phones in the Republic of Ireland.

Why?

The Brexit deal trade deal from December 2020 gave UK mobile operators the ability to start charging again for roaming.

Who Else?

Vodafone, Three and O2 have said that they have no plans to introduce roaming charges, and other operators appear to be reluctant to comment or commit themselves as yet.

What Are Roaming Charges Anyway?

Mobile operators apply roaming charges as a way of covering the costs of a mobile phone being used outside the range of its home network and connecting to another available ‘visitor’ network. Mobile operators have legal roaming agreements with other roaming networks that cover aspects like authentication, authorisation, and billing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

After the Brexit deal from December gave the go-ahead for mobile operators to re-introduce roaming charges, it seems that the pandemic travel restrictions and a period of goodwill were the only things likely to delay the inevitable re-introduction by at least one operator. Roaming charges may be good news for mobile operators, but for UK citizens, whether going on holiday or for business, it’s simply another unwelcome expense. It is good to see that, as yet, Vodafone, Three and O2 have ‘no plans’ to re-introduce to charges, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t happen in some way or won’t be covered in a different form or as part of a different kind of agreement. There are now, at least, some legal limits in place to protect customers from the worst excesses of old-style roaming charges, but EE’s plan to limit roaming charges to a relatively small daily sum that only really affects new customers has gone some way to making the news more bearable and limiting bad publicity.

News

Tech News : Black is the New Blue, er, Screen of Death

Those who have tried the developer’s version of Microsoft’s new Windows 11 OS have reported that what used to be the ‘blue screen of death’ is now black.

What Is The Blue Screen of Death?

The so-called blue screen of death (BSoD) is displayed on a computer running Windows when there has been a fatal system error/system crash whereby the OS has reached the stage where it can no longer operate safely.  In Windows 10, this screen has a blue background, a sad face symbol (introduced back in 2012), an error message, and a QR code (added back in 2016). The QR code enables the user to use scan with their phone to find articles and assistance.

Now Black

The new black screen of death retains the same on-screen elements i.e., the QR code and 🙁 symbol.

Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program

Those who have been the first to try windows 11 are part of Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program.  This is a ‘community’ of millions of people who have signed up through Microsoft’s website to enable them to run Windows Insider Preview Builds of the latest versions of Microsoft’s products, and provide feedback that can help any issues and bugs to be identified and addressed before the wider release.  You can register to become a Windows Insider here: https://insider.windows.com/en-us/about-windows-insider-program

Other Issues

Other issues relating to Windows 11 that have been reported by insiders include not being able to install the operating system due to missing hardware requirements (which has since been fixed using an update to settings), a streamlined version of File Explorer reverting to the old style for some users, and the Start Menu search not working.

Will It Work On Most Computers?

One other major worry that’s been highlighted is that, as things currently stand, the new Windows 11 may not be able to run on many computers because it only supports eighth generation and newer Intel Core processors, Apollo Lake, and newer types of Pentium and Celeron processors,

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Back in 2015, it was announced that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows. A lot can change in the world and in the marketplace of technology in a few years, and Microsoft has found itself having to up its game and change its plans in order to compete with Apple. Windows 11 will be released later this year (date as yet unspecified) and, no doubt, more bugs and issues will be highlighted and reported, as is expected in the testing stages with the Insider Program. The issue of whether Windows 11 can run on machines that don’t have the newer processors, however, is quite an important one that could affect many businesses, and it remains to be seen what comes back from Microsoft about this during this testing phase.

News

Tech News : Children Called “Alexa” Getting Bullied

It has been reported that children called ‘Alexa’ are being bullied because they share the same name as Amazon’s digital assistant and consequently, some parents are now calling for a digital name change.

Alexa

There are an estimated 4,000 people in the UK who are under the age of 25 and called “Alexa” (a female form of Alex).  Amazon reportedly chose the name Alexa for its digital assistant (launched in 2014) because it has a hard consonant with the X, which means that it is a ‘wake word’ that can be recognised with higher precision. Also, the name is reminiscent of the Library of Alexandria, which is also used by Amazon Alexa Internet.

Servant Or Slave?

The BBC, for example, recently reported the stories of different families where younger members named Alexa had experienced bullying because of their name, with one US mum alleging that the name has become synonymous with “servant or slave”, thereby making some abusers feel that they have a licence to treat people of that name in a subservient manner.

One part of the BBC’s report highlights the plight of a girl who was bullied from the age of six over her name, and even claims that adults with the name Alexa also attract ‘comments’.

Not Advertised

One of the criticisms by those families whose children have been the subject of name-based bullying is that Amazon doesn’t appear to advertise the fact that the wake word ‘Alexa’ can be changed.  In fact, customers have a choice of wake words, including Echo, Computer, and Amazon.

How To Change The Wake Word

The wake word in an Amazon Echo, for example, can be changed by opening the Alexa app, opening ‘Devices’, selecting ‘All Devices’ and selecting the device concerned, scrolling under ‘General’ and selecting ‘Wake Word’, selecting and alternative wake word from the list, and then selecting OK.

Advice for parents and carers on how to deal with bullying and cyber-bullying can be found on the NSPCC website here https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/bullying-and-cyberbullying/, on the Kids Health website here: https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/bullies.html and on the Bullying UK website here: https://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/what-to-do-if-your-child-is-being-bullied/.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Amazon had to call its digital assistant something and it’s sad and unfortunate that the name is being used by some people as an excuse to bully others. One thing the company could do to help is, perhaps, to make a greater effort to publicise the fact that users have options to change the wake word to something more benign and generic like ‘computer’ or something that at least reinforces the name of an Amazon product such as ‘echo’. Bullying in school or in the workplace can have damaging and long-lasting effects on the victims and can highlight individuals who need to be challenged and educated in order to understand the causes, and to help them and modify their own bullying behaviour for the good of all.

News

Tech Tip – Checking If Links Are Safe or Spam

If you’ve ever wanted to click on a link to a website but wanted a way to check first whether its spam or worse, here are five ways to safely check:

1. Check the status of a website URL using Google’s Transparency Report, which harnesses Google’s Safe Browsing technology.  See: https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search?hl=en

2. Use URLVoid to check a website’s reputation and detect potentially malicious lnks.  See: https://www.urlvoid.com/

3. Use ScanURL to check a website for malware, phishing, viruses, and poor reputation. See: https://scanurl.net/

4. Check any link that you suspect is a phishing site by using PhishTank.  See: https://www.phishtank.com/

5. Use VirusTotal to scan a web page for malicious links: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/

News

Tech News : UK Nuke Plant Built With Amazon Cash

General Fusion, a Canadian company with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as one of its backers is building a Nuclear Fusion power demonstration plant at Culham in Oxfordshire.

Fusion

Whereas current nuclear power plants split atoms in a process known as ‘fission’ to generate energy, ‘fusion’ generates energy by fusing atoms together, which is the same process that powers our sun.  The fusion process, which can actually create temperatures much hotter than the sun, is achieved by combining lighter elements (hydrogen) to make a heavier one (helium) such as in the tokamak reactor design which uses powerful magnetic fields (magnetised target fusion) to control charged gas/plasma, all contained within a doughnut-shaped container.

The Benefits of Fusion

Fusion power, which was described by National Geographic (2019) as the “holy grail for the future of nuclear power” is safer than fission nuclear power, produces very little radioactive waste, and is a carbon-free energy source.

Culham Demonstration Plant

The Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak experiment/demonstration plant at Culham, is estimated to cost around $400m and aims to be operational by 2025.

The facility, which is 70 percent the size of a commercial reactor, is owned and managed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). It has been reported that the owners of the plant, General Fusion, have been backed by investment from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for more than ten years and, after raising $100m in its last funding round, is likely to use the successful operation of its UK plant as a basis to return to investors looking for more money.

UK Government

The UK Government is reported to have committed £222 million to General Fusion’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (Step) programme at the Culham site which could lead the design and build of the world’s first prototype fusion power plant by 2040, which, it is thought, could support hundreds of jobs in Oxfordshire.

Challenge

There are currently different approaches to methods being used globally for fusion. The challenge to all of them, however, is to get more energy out of the reactions than is put in.

Breakthrough in May at Culham

In May, the fusion programme at Culham reported making a breakthrough in the development of a better way to remove the excess heat produced by fusion reactions, thereby protecting the materials inside the reactor, and extending the amount of time the fusion reactor can operate for.  The new system, which was reported to work in a similar way to a car-exhaust, led to a tenfold reduction in the excess heat.

Nottinghamshire Site?

Back in March there were also reports that the site of the old Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire (due to be decommissioned) could be perfect for a prototype, commercial nuclear fusion reactor.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Finding a way to supply a limitless, clean, cost-effective, and safe power source could benefit us all, help the environment, and create new opportunities in a whole new sector.  For the UK government, the chance to develop a fusion industry in the UK and be seen to be at the cutting edge of the new industry is the justification for the investment.  For Canadian company General Fusion, having a project in the UK is a way to help it expand its geographical presence and broaden its growing global network of government, institutional, and industrial partners in what is becoming a battle to establish early market leadership and promote its approach to and version of fusion as being the preferred format.

News

Tech News : Five-Year High For Tech Hiring

New figures from job search engine Adzuna and data provider Dealroom show that hiring in the tech industry has reached its highest level in five years.

Vacancies Exceeding Pre-Pandemic Levels

The data, which was compiled by Adzuna and Dealroom for the Government’s Digital Economy Council shows that job vacancies in the digital tech sector have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels and are at their highest level since 2016.

For example, in April 2021 almost 10,000 vacancies for software developers were recorded.  This figure is almost double the number recorded in the same period last year. Also, in May this year, 132,000 tech/digital job vacancies were recorded in a single week.

Increased Demand For Digital Services

The increased demand for digital services created by the pandemic was a key driver in the increase in tech job vacancies.  For example, the pandemic meant that retail, healthcare and other sectors had to rely more on digitisation and many businesses found that they were forced into an accelerated digital transformation.  These factors created greater demand for tech products and services, and this, in turn, increased demand for those who could develop tech products and services.

Big Investment in UK Tech Companies

Another factor driving the rise in UK tech vacancies has been the big increase in the investment in UK tech companies over the last year. For example, as reported by TechNation and Dealroom, despite the global pandemic, there was a record level of venture capital (VC) investment in 2020 into UK tech companies, with investment reaching $15bn. This investment, particularly in London, Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, meant that the UK became the third highest investor in tech globally, behind the US ($144.3bn) and China ($44.6bn).

Start-up Hiring Strong

The investment in tech companies has fuelled tech start-ups which, in turn, has kept start-up hiring resilient, and this has contributed to more tech job vacancies.

Almost A Quarter of Tech Jobs Now Remote

One important pattern in the tech-jobs arena is that almost a quarter (22 percent) are remote. This figure represents a doubling of the figure from the same time last year and is likely to be heavily influenced by a general move to remote working during the pandemic as well as by jobhunters hoping to avoid commuting, together with the uncertainty of office-based work in a changing public health situation. This move to remote working has boosted tech job vacancies outside London, and particularly in the north-west of England (Manchester) and Birmingham.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Back in 2019, much of the focus was on the challenge of a tech skills gap. Investment through 2020, and the effects on demand for tech skills caused by a surge in demand for digital/tech services during the pandemic have boosted confidence in the industry, boosted vacancies, and changed the geography and nature of tech jobs e.g., away from London and in favour of remote work. The government is, of course, keen to talk-up these increases as evidence of its investment in what now appears to be a booming UK tech sector. For UK businesses, this shift in focus of tech job vacancies should mean that they are more able to fill roles and get their required tech skills from a wider pool of talent around the country, perhaps considering more remote input.

News

Featured Article : Why Food Delivery App Orders Can Cost Up To 44 Percent More

An investigation by consumer champion ‘Which?’ has revealed that food ordered via delivery apps such as Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats can be considerably more expensive than dealing directly with the food outlet.

Food Delivery Apps

Seven out of 10 people in the UK (Which? survey) say they now use food delivery apps.  Popular delivery apps such as Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats work by allowing customers to place food orders from different restaurants and fast-food outlets in an area using an app on their smartphone or tablet device. Once the restaurant receives, accepts, and confirms a paid-for order, the nearest delivery person is directed to the restaurant from where they take the prepared food to the customer using the navigation in the app. Customers can check the delivery person’s status, location, and ETA on the app.

Deliveroo and Uber Eats have also now added groceries to their platforms so the above process differs slightly in terms of order-picking and delivery method.

Price Differences

The ‘Which?’ survey showed that ordering via the apps cost significantly more than ordering directly from the restaurant, even when delivery costs are accounted for. This is because in addition to individual items varying in price, there are also commission charges for the restaurants which may be reflected in higher pricing.

Comparison

In the Which? survey, a comparison was made between the cost breakdown and price of the same dishes (Chicken Shish & Mixed Grill) ordered from the same Lebanese restaurant, but using the three different Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats delivery apps. The results showed that ordering a Chicken Shish direct from the restaurant cost £12.95 but ordered via Deliveroo and Just Eat the price was £13.95, and £14.95 via Uber Eats.

The Which? survey also compared the purchase of the same groceries purchased direct from the Co-Op, and purchased using the Deliveroo App.  The total price of a direct purchase was £35.40, whereas the price of purchasing the same groceries using Deliveroo was found to be £48.09, a whole £12.69 more!

Commission Paid To Apps

According to Which? the extra expense appears to be down restaurants simply charging more to get back some of the money they must pay out in commission to the apps. The commission can account for anywhere between 15 percent and 35 percent of the total cost of an order. Delivery apps such as Uber Eats, for example, may offer participating restaurants a zero percent commission for the first 40 days before moving the commission rate up.

The Which? report suggests that with delivery app services essentially taking over from people going to the high street during the pandemic lockdowns, restaurants may have felt as though they were faced with the choice being of Deliveroo (for example) and at least getting some business while having to put up with the commission payments, or not being on Deliveroo but essentially becoming invisible and potentially going out of business. The evidence presented in the Which? report also appears to show that for some restaurants with higher running costs, the commission charges of the app delivery service may make using the service unviable.

Customer Complaints

The Which? survey appears to show that even though customers are having to pay more to have their food delivered, they are not always receiving value due to problems often related to delivery.  For example, 59 percent of Deliveroo users and 53 percent of Uber Eats customers reported problems with their orders over the last 12 months. The most common complaints were found to be late delivery, cold food and missing items.

Complaint Complications

It also appears that the fact that there is an extra, third-party service involved (i.e. the delivery app) means that in some cases, customers can find themselves being passed around between the app and the restaurant if they complain and so they don’t always receive a satisfactory resolution.

Resolution Complications

The Which? survey also found that although consumer law states that customers should get what they paid in the first place as a refund, in some cases, customers have been offered an in-app credit with an expiry date instead of a full refund.

Amazon and Deliveroo

Back in April last year, after the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) had considered competition concerns, it was decided that Amazon could invest in food distribution company Deliveroo.  Amazon had previously operated its own ‘Amazon Restaurants’ food delivery service in London, but this was closed in December 2018 following strong competition from Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat, among and others.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Convenience is the big selling point for delivery app customers and there’s no doubt that despite the higher price (compared to direct ordering) these app-based food delivery services have provided an extra layer of value during the pandemic when high streets were effectively closed. For participating restaurants, the app-based delivery services have also provided a lifeline during the pandemic, but one that comes at a cost (i.e. commission paid to the app). There may be an argument, therefore, that now that high streets are again accessible, ordering direct has to be a serious option for customers, not least because the price is lower, but also because any problems are likely to be easier to resolve. For restaurants, although they may receive many orders from app-based delivery services, the ideal situation would be to have more customers ordering direct, thereby cutting out the need for any commission payments.

News

Tech Insight : What’s DaaS?

In this article, we take a brief look at what DaaS is, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

Desktop as a Service

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a service where virtual applications/virtual desktops, via a third-party public or private cloud service, are made accessible (streamed) to users over the Internet via an html-based web browser or a secure application downloaded to the user’s device(s).  DaaS is usually licensed with a per-user subscription.

VDI, VM, and DaaS

VDI refers to the backend ‘virtual desktop infrastructure’ of DaaS, including the ‘virtual machines’ that run desktop operating systems, and are hosted by the third-party cloud provider. A virtual machine (VM) is a virtual environment which operates just like a ‘computer within a computer’, runs on its own isolated part of its host computer, and has its own resources that enable it to let end-users operate it (run apps on it) as they would a physical workstation.

Advantages of DaaS

The advantages of DaaS include:

– It offers businesses a simple to operate, centralised, turnkey, pay-as-you-go solution with minimal set-up time.

– It is flexible and scalable.

– IT admin is simplified (saving time and money).

– The DaaS providers handle VDI deployment, maintenance, security, upgrades, data backup, and storage, thereby saving money and freeing up in-house IT resources and meaning that companies don’t have to go to the expense, trouble, and risk of trying to manage their own on-premises VDI solution.

– An improved disaster recovery (DR) solution (i.e. failover resources) are hosted (securely) in the cloud rather than needing backup workstations.

– Better functionality and productivity from being less likely to fail, experience downtime or disruptions.

– Less dependence on (and fewer costs for) hardware/desktop infrastructure supply chains.

– DaaS can deliver better insights from data, as well as better data integration and governance.

– Improved agility of data workloads.

Disadvantages of DaaS

Some disadvantages include:

– Users will still need a device capable of running and accessing the DaaS service, as well as a good, fast Internet connection. Both of these factors have cost and employee access implications.

– Licensing payments are still required.

– Moving (sensitive) data to the cloud could bring some compliance challenges for some organisations.

– Trust in the security of the cloud is necessary and moving data to the cloud and transferring it over a network could, arguably, bring a data risk compared to keeping it locally behind the firewall.

– IT staff/the business may lack experience in using DaaS.

Some Examples

Examples of DaaS providers/service include Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop, Amazon WorkSpaces, VMware Horizon Cloud, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Cloudalize, V2 Cloud, and dinCloud (dinWorkSpace).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Many businesses have made the move to the cloud anyway and are also now used to the subscription economy and the ‘as-a-service’ model of delivery e.g., Windows 10. The DaaS model clearly offers many benefits, to businesses e.g., cost and resource savings, centralisation, security, flexibility, and simplification, as well as being particularly useful at a time when remote working and now the move to hybrid working have become important. DaaS also enables companies to improve the agility of data workloads, get important business insights more quickly, offer a better work access solution to employees as well as freeing the business from many of the traditional IT management and admin challenges.

News

Tech Tip – How To Use Anchors (Bookmarks) In Google Docs

If you’d like to make it faster and easier to navigate between different document sections in Google Docs, here’s how to insert anchors (known as ‘bookmarks’):

– In Google Docs, type the name of the document in the Title column and open your chosen document.

– Put the cursor at the beginning of where you want to put the bookmark.

– From the document navigation bar select “Insert” > “Bookmark”.

– Go to the section of the document where the link to the Bookmark should come from and click “Insert” > “Link”.

– Type your link text In the Edit Link dialog box.

– Click on “Bookmark” in the “Link To” section to open the Bookmarks list, select your bookmark, and click on the “OK” button to complete the link.

News

Tech Insight : Phew-It’s Hot! And It Affects The Web Too …

In this article, we look at how the weather can affect your Internet connection, and therefore the fortunes of the Web.

Vulnerabilities

Thinking beyond the router that is indoors, and protected from the weather, the rest of the infrastructure that brings your broadband is outdoors, and vulnerable to the effects of the UK weather.

Physical Damage To The Network

Much of our phone network is still made up of underground copper cable, fibre optic cable, and connections. This means that your Internet connection could be affected by:

– Flooding from heavy rainfall dislodging cables and water getting into the connections.

– Hot weather causing networking devices to perform more slowly and cables perhaps suffering physical damage that affects the connection.

– Climate change and extreme weather having had an impact in the form of extreme weather events that disrupt data centre sites. A recent Uptime Intelligence survey, for example, showed that 45 percent of data centres have experienced an extreme weather event that threatened their continuous operation. In the UK, a flood in 2016 at the Vodafone data centre in Leeds resulted in customers getting only intermittent services of voice and data. Data centres around the world are now taking measures to protect themselves from extreme weather that can cause damage and disruption to services.

– Underwater/undersea mudslides, linked to river flooding (from heavy rainfall) in West Africa recently caused oceanographic moorings of cables to surface, thereby damaging subsea cables.

– Rising temperatures (from climate change) increasing humidity across the world by causing the atmosphere to absorb more water vapour, which in turn can affect data centre operations and interfere with tech equipment, affect the strength of wireless signals, and cause slower broadband connection speeds.

– Wireless signals (outside the building) that are part of the communications network can suffer from lower levels of coverage due to rain droplets absorbing and interfering with the signal.

– Satellite dishes and aerials being shaken and/dislodged by very high winds.

Humans

When there are adverse weather conditions outside, this often results in increased use of the Internet and high bandwidth streaming services as people stay indoors and seek online entertainment. These periods of very high demand and high traffic can result in the slowing of Internet connections for many users.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Communications businesses such as ISPs, phone companies, and companies in charge of the maintenance of communications infrastructure now face more challenges from the weather than ever as the effects of climate change drive up temperatures, increase humidity, and cause more extreme weather events. This has resulted in the need to try to incorporate more weatherproofing into their communication infrastructures to guard against the kinds of weather events and threats that this changing climate brings.  Also, as in the case of Openreach, trying to maintain telephone cables (many of them being old, copper cables), ducts, cabinets and exchanges that are all subject to the UK’s changing (but often wet) weather is also a major challenge, at the same time as businesses and homes rely more upon more smart gadgets, devices and the IoT, and use more streaming services for entertainment. These and other earth-bound coverage challenges are the reasons why ideas such as satellite broadband are beginning to look like attractive communications options. SpaceX, for example, has launched/is launching thousands of small satellites into low Earth orbit to provide a global high-speed broadband coverage in a way that may offer protection, to some degree, from weather events.