I’m living a ‘gigabit retirement’, not sipping Horlicks

I agree wholeheartedly with Michael Jones (Letters, Issue 599) on his point that older people also need fast broadband. Maybe Michael has detected a bias in the media ( Computeractive excepted) towards the needs of younger people in regards to broadband.

I accept that home-schooling has focused minds on providing fast connections to children learning at home, but just imagine how much time us over-70s have had to spend indoors in the past year.

It may suit some people to caricature us all as old fogeys sipping Horlicks and doing 1,000-piece jigsaws. I’m partial to both myself, but in the past year I’ve also set up Plex on a NAS drive, installed mesh Wi-fi to boost signals from the conservatory to the loft and live-streamed astronomy classes over the internet. Yes, I may be retired, but my social life is busier than ever (or it was, before Covid struck).

The point so many ‘experts’ forget about retirement is that we have so much time on our hands. When the weather’s nice, that means endless walks in the country. When it’s not so nice, that means staying indoors and diving into the latest technological advances. I’ve got the rest of my life to try them!

In his letter, Michael says he and his wife both need 200Mbps. Without wanting to boast, I’m now the proud owner of gigabit broadband. Some people say you don’t need such fast speeds, but I’ve used it as a spur to discover new things to do. I treat it like a challenge: how to make the most of gigabit. In fact, I intend to spend the next decade or so living a gigabit retirement. It’s patronising in the

The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug!