NHS websites will no longer burn up your mobile data allowance, say Brit telcos
- Reference: 1584634630
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/19/nhs_websites_zero_rated_uk_mobile_networks/
- Source link:
"Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three are among the mobile firms that have said they will give their customers free online access to the latest NHS health information about coronavirus," said the Department of Health and Social Care earlier.
Normally, mobile customers use up their data allowances or pay as they go accordingly when using mobile data allowances to access websites from their phones and fondleslabs. Mobile networks are now zero-rating access to the following NHS domains:
[1]nhs.uk
[2]111.nhs.uk
[3]wales.nhs.uk
[4]nhsinform.scot
[5]nidirect.gov.uk
[6]publichealth.hscni.net
The move is a sensible and proportionate response to the coronoavirus pandemic. It means mobile phone users won't burn up data allowances or topped-up credit while reading health advice about COVID-19.
Matt Hancock, health secretary, said in a statement: "We have been clear this must be a national effort and so I'm delighted that mobile companies will be offering free data to browse nhs.uk. This will ensure everyone can access the guidance they need and avoid dangerous misinformation, without incurring data charges, and is an important contribution to the next stage of our plan to delay the spread of the virus."
Britain is currently scrutinising the government's [7]emergency Coronavirus Bill , published this afternoon.
Zero-rating of selected websites by mobe networks, in days gone by when there wasn't a lethal pandemic sweeping the globe, used to be a real bone of contention. In the US a heated debate raged over net neutrality, driven by fears that mobile operators would become de facto arbiters of which websites society's less well off were able to read.
Back in 2016 Virgin Media [8]zero-rated Facebook and Whatsapp , which wasn't an entirely popular move. ®
[1] https://www.nhs.uk/
[2] http://111.nhs.uk/
[3] https://www.wales.nhs.uk/
[4] https://www.nhsinform.scot/
[5] http://nidirect.gov.uk/
[6] https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/
[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-bill-what-it-will-do/what-the-coronavirus-bill-will-do
[8] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/07/virgin_goes_4g_with_zero_rated_facebook_and_whatsapp/
Also why they didn't just add .gov.uk to the list as it is the official location that lists rights for employees etc
On a similar note, my car MOT runs out at the end of the month. I can see the fine coming already but cannot take it to the garage :/ hope they defer the requirement until this crap is over.
If you're self isolating probably an idea to SORN the car until this all blows over, obviously it would need to be parked off road for this to be legal.
As far as I can tell the DVLA have not issued any guidance on this as yet
Just don't expect to be able to contact your GPs surgery from abroad if they use SystmOne. The Morin's putting that together configured it to ignore traffic from non-UK IP addresses.
Unfortunately it also meant for me that I couldn't access my GPs surgery from work, even though it was in the UK. The parent company was French and out IP address allocation was from a block of "French" numbers.
Knobwits
It begs the question as to why it's taken this pandemic to have this happen?