British Telecom: Are drastically reduced internet speeds and 45-minute internet cuts to be the new norm?
Our Church and State website has no less than 40 Nobel Prize winners on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms formulates what is the core of free speech. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." In an important interpretation of this article, the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. UK (1976) indicated that this "freedom of expression" should be construed as follows. It "is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received, or regarded as inoffensive, or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population." Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see Cliteur, 2010).
British Telecom is one of the world's leading communications services companies. Declan pays BT £70 per month (£850 per year) for Superfast Fibre 2 Unlimited broadband (average speed 67Mb). Last month we wondered if 45-minute internet cuts were to be the new norm; see my blog post of 7 July, INTERNET CUTS: Are 45-minute Internet cuts to be the new norm? We pay British Telecom £850 per year for broadband (WITH UPDATE 9/8/2018: re 272nd Internet cut since 26 May 2017). That's still an open question (we've just been cut off the internet for 33 minutes), but now so too are our internet speeds. We're well used to particular laptops being targeted with little or no internet speed, usually Declan's no. 1 laptop; see my blog post of 3 December 2017, As an assault on individual privacy, we compare the on-off targeting of Declan's relatively new £600 laptop with the removal of our flat door in 2012 (WITH UPDATE 8/12/2017). Today this is more or less the internet speed we have been getting across four laptops:
We usually have an internet speed of about 70Mb.
British Telecom in bold
Paragraph 41 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
41. In October 2017, SiteGround's solicitors told the Applicant to remove a popular article from the Church and State website for alleged copyright infringement or the site would be disabled by SiteGround pending his legal challenge by counter notice. The Applicant removed the article even though it had a Creative Commons licence applied to it, as do all Addicting Info articles. The Applicant's wife's Church and State blog has been attacked in various ways over the years: links have been broken and images exchanged, deleted or temporarily removed. So too have the Applicant and his wife's computers. In December 2015, the Applicant's wife's laptop was rendered incapable of publishing material on the Church and State website. She could not create a WordPress post, add images, or click on most of the platform's buttons. She had posted a video of the attack on her blog before the laptop was returned to normal functioning the following afternoon. Since September 2017, the internet connection speed on any one of their four laptops has been reduced from anything between 70-74Mbps to 0Mbps, usually disabling the targeted laptop, and for up to three weeks to date. The laptop most targeted for this form of attack is the Applicant's main laptop that cost him £600 in January 2017. Their internet connection has been cut 184 times since 26 May 2017, most recently today on 8 May 2018 for a half an hour (the third cut of this duration). The Applicant pays British Telecom £850 per year for broadband. He has documented communication with BT Executive Level Complaints showing there has been no problem with his phone line. (Emphasis added.)
Paragraph 41 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
41. In October 2017, SiteGround's solicitors told the Applicant to remove a popular article from the Church and State website for alleged copyright infringement or the site would be disabled by SiteGround pending his legal challenge by counter notice. The Applicant removed the article even though it had a Creative Commons licence applied to it, as do all Addicting Info articles. The Applicant's wife's Church and State blog has been attacked in various ways over the years: links have been broken and images exchanged, deleted or temporarily removed. So too have the Applicant and his wife's computers. In December 2015, the Applicant's wife's laptop was rendered incapable of publishing material on the Church and State website. She could not create a WordPress post, add images, or click on most of the platform's buttons. She had posted a video of the attack on her blog before the laptop was returned to normal functioning the following afternoon. Since September 2017, the internet connection speed on any one of their four laptops has been reduced from anything between 70-74Mbps to 0Mbps, usually disabling the targeted laptop, and for up to three weeks to date. The laptop most targeted for this form of attack is the Applicant's main laptop that cost him £600 in January 2017. Their internet connection has been cut 184 times since 26 May 2017, most recently today on 8 May 2018 for a half an hour (the third cut of this duration). The Applicant pays British Telecom £850 per year for broadband. He has documented communication with BT Executive Level Complaints showing there has been no problem with his phone line. (Emphasis added.)
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6 August (previous blog post): DAY 67 UKA DBS check: Declan has to raise an Escalation with the Metropolitan Police if he wants to keep volunteering with young people with disabilities (WITH UPDATE - DAY 68 7/8/2018)
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