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ANALYSIS & OPINION:BUSINESS CONTINUITY


FIRED UP BY FAKE NEWS


Fall-out from conspiracy theories and 5G have motivated the optical communications industry to come together in a bid to counteract fake 5G news


KEELY PORTWAY


I was in two minds whether to write this opinion piece. Business journalism training has instilled the belief that the editor of a magazine should not display biased views for either side of a debate. However, the more reports and posts I read on social media from key-worker fibre professionals in the UK who have found themselves at risk – not only from Covid-19, but from people who think the best way to make a protest is aggression – the more I felt compelled to put pen to paper (so to speak). In the past weeks and months, some of the


YOU KNOW WHEN THEY TURN THIS ON, IT’S GOING TO KILL EVERYONE, AND THAT’S WHY THEY’RE BUILDING THE HOSPITALS? ARE THEY PAYING YOU WELL ENOUGH TO KILL PEOPLE?


26 FiBRE SYSTEMS n Issue 27 n Spring 2020


industry’s leading businesses, organisations and the UK government joined forces to fight back against acts of vandalism and abuse, driven by ‘concern about a connection between 5G and the Covid-19 outbreak’. In the UK alone over the bank holiday


weekend, instead of staying at home, groups of ‘activists’ across Liverpool and the West Midlands felt that airing their concern by seting fire to around 20 mobile phone masts was a sensible and valid reason to break quarantine. It is worth noting that, because the UK quite famously has a way to go when it comes to 5G roll-out and the infrastructure behind it, the damage was mainly caused to 3 and 4G equipment in these masts – well done there! Disgustingly, it is not just the equipment


taking abuse. Many fibre broadband engineers and installers on the front line have reported being subject to ill treatment. A video was widely spread across social media showing a woman verbally abusing two Community Fibre engineers, as she mistakenly believed that they were installing 5G. She could be heard asking:


‘You know when they turn this on, it’s going to kill everyone, and that’s why they’re building the hospitals? Are they paying you well enough to kill people?’


Handle with calm Te engineers in question have been praised for the calm way in which they handled the situation. On the company’s LinkedIn page, CEO Graeme Oxby said: ‘Community Fibre provides 100 per cent full-fibre broadband and we do not use 5G technology anywhere in our network, neither in people's homes. Te video recently shared on social media is misleading. Te engineers were continuing to work on our full fibre broadband network.’ In answer to one of the woman’s other


points, why the engineers were out working instead of in quarantine, Oxby continued: ‘Te telecommunications industry has been deemed as an essential service by the UK Government. Terefore, our engineers are classified by the government as critical workers and their work is essential to keep London connected. Te safety of the public and our staff is of the utmost importance to us. Our engineers handled this situation in a polite and calm manner, while they were working to build the network. We would like to thank the public for all the messages of support for Community Fibre’s dedicated critical workers delivering 100 per cent full-fibre broadband to Londoners in these challenging times.’ It is not known why the lady herself was outside filming, rather than in quarantine, incidentally. Abuse such as this is actually taking place


www.fibre-systems.com @fibresystemsmag


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