WHEN my daughter went off to Nepal last month to do some voluntary work in an orphanage there, I was a bit concerned that there might be a communication problem. I was right, but the problem is at my end! Living on the outskirts of Kathmandu, for a few rupees a month she has 24-hour access to wireless broadband, while in Belstone I can only get a very slow dial-up connection. Some people in the village do have broadband via a landline, but we are denied because BT refuse to supply sufficient lines (ie the faceless and unaccountable monopoly 'BT Open reach — surely a misnomer —wouldn't 'Closed reach' be more accurate?). This does seem surprising since BT received millions of pounds of public money to 'broadband enable' the whole of the county of Devon - a feat which they claim to have achieved! With no cable network or mobile (3G) internet available in this area, our only alternative would seem to be a very expensive satellite system. My daughter was hoping to communicate via a web-cam video link, but this is impractical without broadband. The moral seems to be — If you want first class communications, steer clear of Okehampton, and head for a 'Third World' country like Nepal. Name and address supplied
