Apologies in advance to our many highly-valued international readers, but this post definitely needs a Union Jack running over it. We’ll start by telling you why, quoting the body that works on behalf of the Queen to protect our national cyber security:

For thousands of years, and probably from not long after the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago, a major track connected the Celts in the far South with their cousins in the North. By the time of the Roman Conquest, the British were still using this route; recognising its utility, legionnaires soon paved it and called it Ermine Street, using it to connect their capital, Londinium, with their far-off bases in Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) and York (Eboracum). Later, the English called it the Old North Road; and our A1 largely follows the same route. That’s continuity in infrastructure for you.

One broadband operatore to rule them all? Rome’s attempt to build a national broadband service in a day. Reports on possible Italian state intervention raises less than comfortable memories of Blunders down Under and under-priced manifesto offers.

We seem to be ending 2021 on a worrying note again, with a new variant and all sorts of uncertainty in the air. But as a sector--as businesses selling great comms tech and services, and as consumers of amazing ubiquitous connectivity--we’ve actually never had it so good.