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Comment by jackweirdy | Hacker News Reader

"Assange is suffering deteriorating health, he has a small space and little light. It is an embassy under siege. It is very difficult to make a phone call, the internet collapses the whole time, pictures are taken as people enter and leave the building"

Unusual that an embassy would have internet problems. Sounds like GCHQ have a van in the street...

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Maybe they route all traffic through a VPN to Ecuador or something like that?

I doubt that GCHQ would be the reason for internet problems; even if they have "a van in the street", they'd have no incentive to impact the quality of the connection that they monitor.

Unless incompetence. Or malice.

I used to work in the Albanian embassy building and the internet was terrible. I think they just didn't have much to spend on it.

I would have thought Internet access was a drop in the ocean vs all the other expenses involved in operating an embassy

Many embassies are little more than a house for the ambassador to live in, with a meeting room or two.

According to Wikipedia, the address of the Embassy of Ecuador, London is "Flat 3b, 3 Hans Crescent, London SW1X 0LS".

The "Flat 3b" makes me think it's a bit of a shoestring operation.

Interestingly, it looks like a very large apartment building, with several police officers clearly visible near doorways on StreetView.

It was under police guard from when Assange fled there until Feb 2015, which may be what you're seeing. (At significant cost: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31159594)

I think a lot of other expenses were underfunded too.

More permanent than a van. (Not that unusual for an embassy to be spied on!)

It might have something to do with the IMSI catcher installed more or less across the road; hard to hide those, they broadcast, and that one is not particularly trying to be stealthy.

I would have a friend buy a good 4G data plan for 20GB monthly or even more. That would get him more reliable and faster internet. He could have several. How much does that cost?

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