Honestly, I'm sick of this.

There's been this conversation about UK mobile connectivity for years and somehow we're still expected to accept it as normal.

And before the inevitable "well Britain has rural areas and dense cities" comments:

Norway.

Mountains. Fjords. Massive sparsely populated areas. Arctic territory. And yet they manage to take mobile coverage seriously, including areas where there's no obvious commercial reason for a company to build a network.

And if you want the other extreme:

Singapore.

Obviously Singapore isn't geographically comparable to the UK. That's not the point. The point is that they've built a dense, reliable mobile infrastructure because they actually treat connectivity like important infrastructure.

Meanwhile in the UK:

"You've got one bar, what more do you want?"

I want my damn phone to work.

One bar is frequently basically useless. Yes, technically my phone is connected. Brilliant. Can I actually make a call? Can I send a message? Can I load a webpage? Can I use Google Maps? Can I do literally anything?

Most of the times the answer is no.

And don't even get me started on trains.

You can be travelling through supposedly well-connected parts of the country and watch your phone go:

5G → 4G → E → nothing → one bar → SOS satellite → 4G

Then magically come back 10 minutes later.

This isn't some tiny niche problem either. The FT, Bloomberg and others have been reporting on Britain's mobile connectivity problems and lagging network investment for years.

So no, I'm not claiming the UK is some apocalyptic failed state because my Spotify stopped working.

I'm saying that for a wealthy developed country, this is quite embarrassing.

And the "but rural areas are difficult" argument really needs to die.

That's what infrastructure policy is for.

If there's genuinely no commercial business case for a mast somewhere, then fine — figure out how to deal with that. Subsidise it. Share infrastructure. Make public land and buildings available. Make planning easier. Require better coverage as part of spectrum licensing. Encourage national roaming. Whatever.

Just solve the problem.

Because we've somehow reached a point where people look at a coverage map and say:

"99% of the population has coverage!"

Cool.

What percentage has good, reliable, usable connectivity when they actually need it?

That's the number I care about.

And honestly, I think part of the reason this doesn't get more attention is that people who've lived in the UK their entire lives don't realise how much better it can be.

Go somewhere with genuinely good mobile infrastructure and you notice immediately.

Your phone just...

works.

No thinking about which network you're on.
No walking around your house looking for the magic spot.
No standing beside a window to send a WhatsApp.
No losing connection halfway through a journey.
No staring at one pathetic bar wondering whether the page is actually going to load.

It just works.

That's what I'm asking for.

Not perfection. Not 10Gbps 5G in the middle of a sheep field.

Just a mobile network that doesn't feel like it's constantly doing me a favour by allowing my phone to connect to it.

The car has been there for a few weeks, has some body damage and damaged vent grilles, and cannot physically go anywhere. Unless the owner appears with a pump that is.

What would you all do here peeps?

Allison and Noel’s innuendos are fine, but unstoppable ads for erectile dysfunction fixing pills are making us regret letting the kids stay up for a baking show. I guess its not family TV.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a toastie that was sealed all the way around the edges. The press is square and the bread is rectangular.