Communications

Worth knowing: if you come from an area of low technology, you will be pleased by the communication networks in England. They cover the country. You can make phonecalls and usually join to the internet wherever you are.

However, in Manchester, if you come from an area of high technology, you may be disappointed by the communication networks.

Internet

England has the slowest internet speeds of any high‐technology country. Overall Manchester’s internet speeds are about middle speed for England so, though difficult to evaluate overall, that makes them the slowest in any major city. Performance is poor in the south of the city and along the Stretford corridor.

So?

Computers may work slowly, especially outside the centre. Sometimes internet will fail—though experience says this will be a few seconds only. Internet‐heavy applications (not web‐browsers, for example workplace databases or web‐based phone and video) will be sluggish and/or likely to break.

Mobile Networks

England’s mobile networks are a little better. Telephones are good in the centre, but performance drops considerably outside the centre. Performance is poor in the south of the city. Manchester has frequent cloud cover that disrupts telephone connections.

So?

In the centre, despite many ancient and physically‐high constructions, performance is good. Outside the centre, phone connection can be unreliable and/or be of low quality (this is regardless of your promised ‘maximum’ speed of connection).

Public provision

The English are poor at public anything. Government provides no WiFi. Some companies, for example EE, BT and Sky (‘The Cloud’) offer hotspots that, if you do not use the network, can be paid for and logged on… but these are expensive and inconvenient. Companies protect their networks for employees only. Organisations like shopping malls do not provide WiFi. There is no WiFi on public transport. Finally, there are few charging points—if you see charging points, they may not work.

Most cafes and hotels offer WiFi, but this should not be used for financial or personal work (if you know how to use these kinds of public WiFi, this guide is not for you).

So?

The only place for most people to securely logon to the internet is the WiFi in a private house. Distrust anything else.