The Happy Pod: Mobile coverage reaches remote Norwegian town
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 8.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our weekly collection of the happiest stories in the world. This week, how a settlement in Norway is taking a unique approach to mobile phone etiquette, after getting signal for the first time. Also: the man who composes music on TikTok to tell short stories. And we look ahead at what's to come in the worlds of sport and music in 2024.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Bring the world closer with podcasts from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.0 | Unmissible stories from around the globe. |
| 0:08.0 | Wow. |
| 0:09.0 | Search for the documentary, Lives Less Ordinary, |
| 0:12.0 | and amazing sports stories, wherever you get your BBC |
| 0:15.2 | podcasts. You better be ready because we're gonna bring it to you. Billions of text messages are sent worldwide every day. We've been sending them for more than two decades, but for the people living in Neolusand, a Norwegian town on the Svalbard archipelago, it's only just become possible. |
| 0:39.0 | I received text messages from them the very first day just to test that we are actually alive. |
| 0:45.8 | It has been a very positive response that they are having a, let's say normal life. If buildings constructed during the pandemic are being repurposed into homes and shelters. |
| 1:05.4 | The company in Slovenia turning a pesky plant. |
| 1:08.6 | A huge, very dense bushy plant about 12 feet tall and there is a lot of it. |
| 1:16.5 | Into something more useful and we look back at one of the lesser known but important sporting events of the year, the Special Olympics. |
| 1:25.0 | We're in 190 countries and as a person who's been a part of the leadership team for a long time, |
| 1:30.0 | I feel like it's given me a front row seat for the best in humanity. |
| 1:34.5 | All this and more to come on the Happy Pot from the BBC World Service. We begin in the town of Neolusand, one of the world's northernmost permanent settlements. |
| 1:51.0 | It's located on the Norwegian archipelago, Svalbard. And to give you an idea of how far away it is from the rest of Norway, the town is 1,000 kilometers closer to the North Pole than it is to Oslo. |
| 2:03.0 | In the summer, the town has a population of around 200, |
| 2:06.0 | many of whom are scientists researching climate and space. |
| 2:10.0 | Last month, it became the last town in Norway to get mobile coverage. |
| 2:14.3 | But the town hasn't been left behind with all technology. |
| 2:17.2 | They have internet there, but only through a wired connection. |
| 2:20.6 | Wireless networks have always been banned so it's not to mess with the delicate scientific monitoring equipment used by research laboratories. |
| 2:28.0 | Talks to get mobile coverage began back in 2001, and now that it's established 22 years later it means the |
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