Is your Internet being affected by the weather?

THE wild weather affecting Britain will continue into the weekend as Storm Emma continues to bring heavy rain, snow and high seas in the wake of serious disruption which was caused by what the national media dubbed:- 'beast from the East.' Most headlines have been about disruption to the transport network, but the UK's internet has taken a pounding as well.

Services throughout the UK have been affected by lines being brought down by the snow and ice, resulting in Internet speeds dropping as fast as the temperature. All it takes is a weather related event, such as wind or snow to break a line or a power outage to occur, somewhere between you and a site you are connecting to, to affect your connection. Think of an egg timer. If you think bits are sand grains, the smaller the hole, the less grains that fall through, the longer it takes for the data to get to you. It can lead to your connection freezing up, as servers in exchanges try to re-route the IP traffic for an entire region, down less lines. Oddly, even in summer, you are never safe as heat can result in its own problems, as when it is hot the telephone cables can fuse together and transformers overheat! So if you're currently experiencing slow connection speeds, such gremlins could be why you can't access your favourite websites as quickly as usual.

Have you ever spotted Met Office warnings that:- "severe weather conditions could affect mobile phone signals" and have been puzzled by it, the answers can be wide and varied... Should you experience issues, it might be that the receiver/transmitters within your area are not working, due to power cuts or hard line disconnections. The other cause can be an increase in humidity that results in a drop in your phone signal, due to the propagation delay effect. Propagation delay refers to the time lag between the departure of the signal from the source device to its reception, for example, from your handset to the cell phone mast. In this case delay is down to the scattering of the signal as it bounces around from say, snow flake to snow flake. This scattering degrades the signal and also means it comes in out of order at the cell tower.

The lack of connections and also slow speeds experienced over the last few days have yet again highlighted our growing dependency on connectivity and has underlined the need for the UK to invest more in our telecommunications network. Please email us your thoughts and views to:- News24@SouthportReporter.com and also let us know if you have seen a drop in connection speeds this week.

Walk for Autism

POP along to The Atkinson, on Monday, 5 March 2018, get on a treadmill and help:- 'Walk for Autism.'   Walk for Autism 2018 is being organised by Autism Initiatives Group, a national charity which started in Southport and runs 'A Great Little Place Café' in The Atkinson.  The project is encouraging people to walk 10,000 steps a day for 8 days during World Autism Awareness Week, that runs from 26 March to 2 April 2018 and raise funds for people with autism.

It's thought that over 1 in 100 people have some form of autism, which is a neurological condition and can mean a difference in the way a person thinks, perceives and therefore understands the world and others. This may result in difficulties or differences in communication, social interaction, thinking and in sensitivity of the senses.

Find out more by dropping into The Atkinson, between 10am and 4pm, on Monday, 5 March 2018, and chat to staff, or you can donate and walk on the treadmill for a short time, hopefully contributing to 10,000 steps that day. Or go to WalkForautism.Org.UK and you will get a how to pack, including:- fundraising tips and a free T shirt and pedometer by registering to Walk for Autism during the week.

RMT confirms further 24 hours of strike action on Northern and Merseyrail in fight over guards and rail safety goes ahead, despite the weather

IF the weather has not stopped your plans for a fun weekend, the Rail Union, the RMT have announced that the strike action will still go ahead, on Saturday, 3 March 2018, in separate disputes with train operating companies Northern and Merseyrail over attacks on the role of the safety critical guard and the extension of Driver Only Operation, in what they claim is:- "in the name of increased profits." ‎

We are told that member of the Union, on both Northern and Merseyrail, have been instructed to take action as follows:- "Not to book on for any shifts between 0001 hours and 2359 hours, on Saturday, 3 March 2018."

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:- "Every single effort that RMT has made to reach negotiated settlements in these separate disputes with Northern and Merseyrail over safe operation and safe staffing has been kicked back in our faces. No one should be in any doubt, these disputes are about putting the safety of the travelling public before the profits of the private train companies. It is frankly ludicrous that we have been able to negotiate long term arrangements in Scotland and Wales that protect the guards and passenger safety but we are being denied the same opportunities with rail companies in England. Theresa May and Chris Grayling are happy to stand aside and cheer on overseas rail companies that rip off the British passenger with eye watering far increases to subsidise their domestic transport operations while throwing the guards off our trains. If it’s good enough for Wales and Scotland to put safety first then it’s good enough for the rest of the UK. RMT remains ready for talks in both of these disputes."

Please email via:- News24@SouthportReporter.com and also let us know your thoughts and views on this topic.