Before the war here, communications were by radio and telephone. The system in the settlements was of a series of coded rings. If you heard your code, then would pick up the phone and hear the words broadcast along the telegraph wires. The radio messages were broadcast so anyone could listen in; the doctors surgery hour made this compulsory listening for all. Privacy before the Google era was also not an option.
Mobiles are now in every pocket and hand. Telegraph poles, once vital, lean drunkenly with their old ceramic isolators, and sad trailing wires. This infrastructure, once so cutting edge, has gone. I will miss the song of the wind in the wires and I wonder, where will the little birds perch in the future.
The internet speeds increase every year, but they are still oh so slow. 2Mbs is the fastest, but like car fuel consumption, this is a fairy story. BBC iPlayer does not work for me — even with a VPN1
You have to prepare for the cost — 10-20 times that of the UK for 5% of the speed.
TV here has come on leaps and bounds. You can choose BBC or ITV with a time delay, so that the One Show is on at 7pm here ie 3-4 hours after it has been broadcast in the UK. Unfortunately, there is no Channel 4 so there was no tv coverage of the Grand National2
In addition to this, there is Falklands Islands TV— you must catch this. If you miss the program which has 2 editions per week, then you can buy the DVD.
We have Sky News; broadcast live. There are no adverts on this; instead, it cuts to the weather forecast around the world.
This is good value (it is free) but suffers from British Forces Broadcasting Services cutting into the schedule for half hourly news bulletins. The BFBS news is interesting, but I do wish we had the choice of deciding to continue with Sky or BFBS.
No Sky commercial channels here (I am told that importation of satellite decoder boxes is illegal here3
The infrastructure must be improved for the commercial prosperity of these islands. The way forward has to be a big fat pipe of fibreoptic cable between here and Montevideo — all you can eat internet, fast upload and download, and streaming video services such as Netflix have to be the way forward4
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Virtual Private Network — you will need this to fool the server that you are in fact in the UK as you route your internet through the node in Manchester or London. This does slow the connection down even further to a glacial pace. ↩
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You might think that is a good thing — no Big Brother or other car crash programs that are prurient or just out to shock by their grossness. ↩
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Some might say that this is to preserve the monopoly of the present supplier of AV services to the islands ↩
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Not a new thing for the islands. A submarine cable served to keep shipping firms updated with news of traffic around Cape Horn and functioned until obsolescence brought about by radio reared its head. ↩