The simple trick that will hugely boost your phone coverage

In the recent debate over Britain’s 5G infrastructure, one dog didn’t bark in the night. At no point did anyone dare suggest that, regardless of the supplier, upgrading our mobile networks to 5G might be premature.

In saner parts of the economy, an investment requires something called a ‘use case’ or a cost-benefit analysis. In other words, you need to provide some immediate benefits which will arise as a result of your investment. Anything that can be dressed up as next-generation technology is somehow spared that tedious level of scrutiny. All it takes is for the techno-consulting complex to claim that ‘without this we risk being left behind’ and next thing you know there’s a blank cheque. This indulgence afforded to the technology sector distorts the economy.

As things stand, you can’t even make a phone call or enjoy a reliable 3G signal on the train between Sevenoaks and London Bridge. (That is assuming I can make it to the station with my car intact: even under constant carpet-bombing from the 2nd Air Division, the North Vietnamese Army somehow did a better job of repairing potholes on the Ho Chi Minh Trail than Kent County Council manages on the A25.) So forgive me if I am less than excited at seeing billions of pounds sunk into infrastructure we don’t yet need.

If anyone should be enthusiastic about 5G, it is the South Koreans. There you can use 5G’s low latency to flip rapidly between videos of insanely attractive people performing intricately choreographed dance routines, while simultaneously ordering a home delivery of dolsot bibimbap. Life does not get any better than that. Yet even in Korea the value of 5G seems to be in doubt.