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Welsh Village Almost Completely Cut Off

posted by CoolHand on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the first-world-problems dept.

GlennC writes:

From BBC Magazine:

The Welsh village of Staylittle can be found to the west of Newtown in Powys. It's an isolated place - the nearest market town is almost eight miles away. "Staylittle, which has remained outside the perimeter of progress and stayed little, is miles from anywhere," complained a reporter in the Times in 1965. Fifty years might have passed since then but the village's communications are still tenuous.

It has no mobile reception. And because of this, most people in Staylittle have to rely on their landlines to stay in touch with people. But a fortnight ago, the villagers were cut off. Ten days later, Staylittle was still waiting for the problem to be fixed. The main conduit of communication is one working landline in the Post Office.

Yes, the UK is more compact than either the US or Australia, but I imagine it's still frustrating to be as cut off as the people here are.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday September 05 2015, @02:35PM

    by looorg (578) on Saturday September 05 2015, @02:35PM (#232616)

    This is not really going to change anytime soon. Lots of countries have these kinda places, they are like cellphone and communication dead-zones. There was a difference for many of these places in Europe when the telecom company was a state-owned company. Then they didn't really have a problem with it, they pulled copper out to little villages where it was a handful of houses in the middle of nowhere. But after they have been privatized that just ain't the case anymore. They are to small for the telecom companies to find it financially viable to pull fiber out to them, they'll eventually do it when the copper lines become a hassle. So a line blowing down or getting cut of due to construction or weather usually takes ages these days to have repaired. They are out of cellphone coverage for the same reasons. There are just to few people living there for it to be financially viable to put up coverage.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:37PM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:37PM (#232694) Journal

    This is not really going to change anytime soon.

    Yes it is. Sooner than you think.
    Both in the UK and the US, there are projects in place to bring cell service to the very last corners of the nation.
    Why?

    Because its cheaper than land lines to build and maintain. Even when you factor in the cost of the tower and a microwave back-haul link, it ends up being way cheaper. In places where the government owns the networks, a cell tower can be thrown up for around 200,000. (governments give themselves land leases, permits, etc).

    In a city it can be much more.
    In rural areas it can be very cheap, you can rent a tiny corner of a farmer's field (and the needed space is getting smaller all the time with the use of mono-pole towers) for a couple thousand a year. In many rural areas out west, they just us microwave links for back-haul, and hang that all on the same tower.
     

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