Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales has been called the last decent tech baron. It’s sounds like a flattering label, although one I usually associate more with yacht-dwelling meatheads who feed their herds of cattle homegrown macadamia nuts; the kind of person who can most recently be found wining and dining with the President of the United States and his coterie of MAGA sycophants.

Wales, on the other hand, keeps things relatively low-key. Even as the site he founded, Wikipedia, turns 25 years old this month, he seems more interested in fixing his home Wi-Fi than joining the tech elite’s performative power games. He has also spent the past few months promoting a new book, The Seven Rules of Trust, that uses Wikipedia’s overarching strategy and unlikely rise to articulate Wales’ playbook for fixing much of what’s broken in today’s deeply polarized and antagonistic society.

On this week’s episode of The Big Interview, Wales and I discussed what it means to build something used by billions of people that’s not optimized for growth at all costs. During our discussion he reflected on Wikipedia’s messy, human origins, the ways it’s been targeted by governments from Russia to Saudi Arabia, and the challenges of holding the line on neutrality in an online ecosystem hostile to the notion that facts even exist. We also talked about what threatens Wikipedia now, from AI to conspiracy-pilled billionaires, and why he’ll never edit an entry about Donald Trump. Read our full conversation below.

The latest step in its parent company’s plan to move customers off the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and upgrade to new digital services has seen Openreach reveal 132 UK exchange locations, covering 1.23 million premises, where the business aims to halt the sale of traditional copper-based phone and broadband services.

The BT-owned broadband company has regarded the shift from copper to full-fibre networks as “every bit as significant as the move from analogue to digital and black and white TV to colour”.

The programme was first mooted in 2019, with legacy network skills and parts increasingly difficult to come by, and with digital services – such as voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and other apps – becoming more popular and effective. By retiring analogue phone lines, Openreach said it would create a simplified network to meet the enhanced needs of an increasingly digital society.

In practical terms, BT is in the process of transitioning more than 14 million traditional lines across the UK onto digital services to realise its plan on a national basis. The stop sell process is triggered when a majority (75%) of premises connected to a particular BT comms exchange can get a full-fibre connection.

Customers who then want to switch, upgrade or regrade their broadband or phone service will have to take a new digital service over Openreach’s full-fibre network. People and business using these exchanges not yet able to get full-fibre at their premises won’t be affected and can stay on their existing copper-based service until full fibre becomes available.

Following the decision to shut down the PSTN, it was agreed to test processes for migrating customers to fibre services and, ultimately, withdraw legacy copper services and the wholesale line rental products that rely on them. Openreach is giving communications providers – such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, which all use its network – a year’s notice that it will no longer be selling legacy analogue products and services in these circumstances.

Despite the general progress in the programme, in May 2024, BT Group revised its timetable for moving all customers off the PSTN from its original date of the end of 2025 to January 2027. The new deadline followed a series of improvements to the programme that BT assured would better protect vulnerable customers and those with additional needs, including telecare users. BT added that its revised approach will result in a single switch for the majority of customers – both businesses and consumers.

By mid-February 2026, stop sell rules will have been activated in 1,281 exchanges across the UK, representing around 12.5 million premises where Openreach full-fibre is available to a majority of premises and copper products cannot be sold, 51% of the company’s total full-fibre footprint. 

The Openreach full-fibre network is currently available to 21 million premises, around 60%, and the provider is aiming for 25 million connections by the end of 2026 and 30 million by 2030, subject to the right regulatory conditions.

Commenting on the latest step in the programme, James Lilley, Openreach’s managed customer migrations director, said: “Our stop sell programme is a vital step in accelerating the UK’s transition to a modern full-fibre future. As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future-proofed technologies.

“By phasing out legacy copper-based services in areas where fibre is now widely available, we’re ensuring customers and providers move onto faster, more reliable digital infrastructure. This approach not only reduces the cost and complexity of having to maintain both old and new networks, but also supports the industry-wide migration ahead of the legacy copper-based PSTN now just over 12 months away, by which time everyone will need a digital phone line.”

As of December 23, 2025, the US Federal Communications Commission barred Chinese-based drone maker DJI from importing any new drones into the United State. That might sound like you can’t buy a DJI drone right now, but that’s not true. Head over to Amazon and just about the whole DJI drone lineup is still for sale. So what gives? Are they banned or not?

The key word in the previous paragraph was any new drone. Nothing DJI has made in the past is banned. No one is taking your drone away. It’s still perfectly legal to fly a drone. And this isn’t just a DJI ban. It’s a ban on foreign-made drones, which includes those from companies such as DJI, Autel Robotics, HoverAir, and thers. That DJI is singled out in headlines has more to do with its market dominance than the way the rules are written.

I’d like to say that with the biggest competitor essentially removed from the market that US-based companies are swooping in with new drones. Actually we did say that once about Skydio, and we even liked the Skydio drone we tested, but since then Skydio has shifted away from the consumer market.

No New Drones

While it’s good news that the old stuff is still for sale, it’s unlikely that any new drones will arrive.

In order to sell in the United States, anything that uses radio frequency components has to be approved by the FCC. Drones use radio frequencies when flying, so they fall under FCC jurisdiction. Because none of the drone companies have had the security review they need by an approved US agency, they have all been placed on what’s called the Covered List. Companies on the Covered List do not have approval to import products into the US, effectively banning them.

There’s some evidence that wheels are turning somewhere, in a way that could spell good news for consumer drone flyers. Last week, the FCC amended its Covered List to exempt drones and components already approved by the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue UAS list. The FCC says in its public statement, “The DoW has determined that UAS and UAS critical components included on Defense Contract Management Agency’s (DCMA’s) Blue UAS list do not currently present unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or to the safety and security of US persons.”

For the most part, this doesn’t really impact consumer drones, unless you were in the market for a $13.6k Parrot Anafi USA Gov edition thermal drone, but it’s better than silence, which has been the primary thing we’ve heard leading up to the December ban.