Tracing

Sunday

Bob Seely

In defence of the Isle of Wight’s suitability for tracking and tracing

A reply by the Isle of Wight's MP to Freddy Gray’s: Is the Isle of Wight really the best place to launch a tracing app?Dear Freddy, You have written disparagingly about the Isle of Wight, its tech and a little bit about its identity. You said the internet was 'rubbish' and that we live in the 1980s. I would like to challenge that. The internet really does work here. I am aware there’s black hole of sorts in Seaview, where you sometimes stay. However, that is atypical of the Island. I have had Sky’s Adam Boulton, no less, congratulate me on the quality of my connection and I live six fields from the sea, behind a down, in the remote southwest of the Island known as ‘the Back of the Wight’.

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Is the Isle of Wight really the best place to launch a tracing app?

Technology can save the world — from South Korea to Singapore to, um, the Isle of Wight. Oh yes. Britain is catching up at super-fibre-optic-lightning speed with the superpowers of tech in its fight against Covid-19. We’ve developed a snazzy ‘track and trace’ app, that's already been trialled at an RAF base in Yorkshire, and the government now intends to roll it out in a pilot scheme on the lovely Isle of Wight and the Scottish Isles, Health Secretary Matt Hancock will announce on Monday. Sod the threats to privacy and liberty — let’s get people-monitoring done! One small problem — the internet on the Isle of Wight doesn’t really work. Mobile telephone reception is notoriously rubbish; so too is broadband. It's a common gripe down here.