Last year, at the start of Ramadan, I was with my family in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains, in the capable hands of a local guide and his friend Mohammed. Mohammed looked 102 years old and spoke not a word of English, but was a jolly chap who sang to himself as he led his mule along the tracks with us. There were glimpses of new wealth buying into some of the villages whose paths we traversed, but by and large the buildings’ weathered stones appeared gloriously untouched by modern civilisation. 

Looks, however, can deceive. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere a little jingle competed with Mohammed’s vocals, and he pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and began an animated conversation in Berber. On the basis that he was still talking 10 minutes later, the reliability of the connection was clearly much better than I usually find in Canary Wharf.

“Digital connectivity is now an essential utility,” asserted the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) in its recently published National Infrastructure Assessment (NIA). I doubt many would argue with that statement, which came only a few weeks before the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its 2018 Internet access – households and individuals report, suggesting that 90% of UK households, and 100% of all households with children, now have an internet connection. 

“The UK has slipped from 31st to 35th in the broadband speed league table, putting us in the bottom third of EU countries”

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