This Wi-fi project is a blessing from the top

My faith is a bit like my Wi-fi: it comes and goes. Is there a way of restoring them both at once? Usually, you’d be asking the wrong magazine for spiritual and home broadband advice in one go… but you’re in luck this month. Praise be indeed! You see, the UK government and the Church of England have formed a partnership to use Church property to “improve broadband, mobile and Wi-fi connectivity for local communities”. So if you live in the kind of place that inspired The Vicar of Dibley, salvation could be at hand.

Brilliant. How many Hail Marys do I need to do to get in on the action? That’s more of a Catholic thing. Anyway, like the COE itself, this is an all-comers-are-welcome deal – except you needn’t sit yourself down on a wildly uncomfortable pew to be saved from the Netflix buffer wheel of doom. This plan simply involves placing wireless transmitters in church spires. Because in a village full of quaint cottages, tea shops and the odd mini-golf course, a church is likely to be the tallest building going and therefore well placed to broadcast wireless internet to nearby homes.

Hallelujah! Now when can I expect this faster broadband to arrive? You shouldn’t be living on a prayer for too long, especially since the government has already announced you’ll have a legal right to high-speed broadband of at least 10Mbps by 2020 and this scheme is already running in 120 parish churches across the UK. Given 65% of Anglican churches and 66% of parishes in England are in rural areas, there’s a huge amount of potential for the concept. Finally, you’ll have no excuse not to watch Songs of Praise every Sunday on iplayer.