We live in a small village in Kent. Our 'Medical Centre' in the next large village has gone digital. Repeat prescriptions are only accepted if one uses the NHS Ap. It has a box where you can write a message. Oddly it has a notice stating "You can add a note about your prescription here. Your note may not be seen or replied to, so if you have an important request for this prescription, contact your GP surgery."
The surgery only accepts contacts via eConsult. I suppose one might be able to speak to someone on the telephone, but who has an hour or two spare for that? I asked by e-mail for a call to discuss my medication. That's how I know one has to use eConsult. Select 'I want help for my condition' was the helpful advice contained in the email refusing my request. The problem is that no such category exists. There is a choice. Either invent a condition that might get you a phone call from a GP or go on taking what might be the wrong medicine. Of course choosing a fictitious illness would involve a series of automated 'Triage' questions, just as a real illness would. At the end there is the risk of being fobbed off with 'Call NHS 111' staffed by people with the same screen as eConsult, but maybe enhanced by Google. Frustrated, I wrote to the Managing Partner and, finally got a call. What, in the days of Biro's and paper would have taken a few minutes now took the best part of three days. It seems the reality of online everything is that from GP surgeries to Banks, businesses are looking for more bucks for less bangs.
It may all soon be irrelevant as BT end landline telephones. Although as the crow flies we are only thirty miles from London our mobile signal is intermittent. On a good day it works with the phone propped against the front window. On a bad one, it's necessary to walk around the garden holding the phone in the air. In a world of 5G we'd be happy with half a G. According to BT "The existing landline network has become old and outdated. That's why it's being retired across the UK, by all providers, and upgraded to a digital service". We do not have fibre optic cable. There are no plans to roll it out. Therefore, our telephone and broadband comes over copper telephone wires. That's the case for large parts of the country. Depending on your service provider it's also the case in cities. Presumably, BT who now own EE will continue to use the copper wires. Maybe they have some clever strategy to make us all dependent on so called 'Smart Phones' and then ramp up the prices.
Whatever their reasoning, there is a danger that even they acknowledge. "If there's a power cut or your broadband's down, you won't be able to make calls using Digital Voice, including 999 calls. Your mobile will still work as long as it's charged, but if you don't have one or are in an area with no mobile signal, please contact us". What do we do in an emergency? In almost all surrounding villages the mobile signal is intermittent at best. Landline phones work because the power comes down the telephone line. Cut off from that could quite literally mean a death sentence.
The answer, we are told is the wonderful roll out of the 5G network. To operate 5G needs masts spaced at a median distance of 600 feet . That's about 2,000 masts per square mile. The medium cost is £200,000 each. That's £400,000,000.00. There are 50,301 square miles in England. Scotland and Wales add an additional 43,759 mi2. 94,060 X £400,000,000.00? Someone, as the saying goes, is having a laugh. Bizarrely, the industry is now planning 6G!
The government controls telecom licenses. As in so many other fields it is failing the interests of the electorate. No one wants technology that does not work. No one voted to be fobbed off by service providers hiding behind AI. It is as if a sadistic Major Major has been put in charge of our lives. Jerry M Lewis and Stanford W Gregory in their 1978 paper "Extensions to the sociology of the inept". Wrote "Catch-22 supports a thesis ....... that the inept can identify their own ineptitude, and become active participants in its own institutionalisation".
A more sinister view is to look at the way China controls people via aps on their smartphones or the way Trudeau froze truckers bank accounts. Those who believe in Globalisation see the use of Smartphones and digitisation as the means of control. To work that means moving people into close knit groupings in large towns or cities. Country folk are a threat to this ideal society. Maybe cutting us off is a nudge factor? Niall McCrae's new book Green in Tooth and Claw is vital reading for anyone concerned with the curtailment of liberty. It also explains why Davos devotees like Starmer and Sunak stand aside while Doctors, Banks and Telephone companies degrade life, liberty and freedom of choice.
