Posts by Anna Logg
90 posts • joined Wednesday 24th June 2009 12:06 GMT
Re: Double the power needed at the phone end?
All other factors remaining equal then yes, the mobile would have to transmit twice as much power to maintain a balanced link. Seldom that straightforward in practice, but upping the base station maximum transmit power by 3dB isn't the 'easy win' it might first appear to be.
@ James 51
..the same as will happen to the millions of smart meters and other M2M appliances that use GSM modems, they won't work. How OFCOM intend managing this issue - if they intend doing so - will be interesting to see.
Posted in Nokia Siemens slim-down continues
@Mage
Speaking as one of many ex-employees, it didn't do the ex Nokia Networks folk much good either.
well good luck anyway
Nobody from Ionica onwards has made wireless broadband access work financially, but maybe now is the time when the finances finally work out. Maybe.
Re: iPhone 5 not compatible with UK 800MHz band
Presumably the iPhone 5 supports LTE at 1800MHz though, so should work on the EE network.
Posted in DAB dad Pure deploys DVR
Re: Could be good
Same here, DMX mini system CD player started skipping after 14 months, then the DAB radio started losing its tuning memory randomly (both common faults judging by Amazon reviews). PURE's only repsonse was to offer a discount on a newer PURE product - and that discount was more than Amazon's normal price anyway. No more PURE products for me.
Posted in AT&T to mothball 2G network by 2017
could be interesting trying this in the UK
..given that the majority of these "smart" utility meters being rolled out at great expense use GSM modems for communication IIRC.
Re: Image Compression
There seems to be no way of changing the PC app so that full size is the default upload though; I doubt if I'm the only one that's accidentally staretd uploading a batch of pictures and then relaised it's defualted back to 2048 pixels wide again :-/
@Taylor 1
Having worked for Far Eastern companies I suspect it's more a case of lack of local authority to change anything without consulting a vast range of managers back at HQ.
Posted in Analogue switch-off hits London today
what about repeaters?
"the remaining digital channels [will] become available in all areas".
Even to those on repeaters which will only broadcast the "Freeview Lite" channel selection????
My mum lives in Weymouth, and her range of channels has actually decreased post DSO, because she's on a repeater.
Re: NFC
Software SIM? No thanks, I rather like being able to swap my phone number between phones in seconds.
Posted in Philips 42PFL7666 42in 3D LED Smart TV
Re: distract from the dullness of the content
Nope, becuase stereo sound is almost certainly part of the original production, wheares the TV adding some random light show of its own is not.
Re: Easy way to cut costs
Manage payroll??? Takes me all of 5 minutes to total my monthly hours and submit an invoice to my clients. Can't see any point in paying a third party to do that, particularly if you're a limited company.
Re: Smart meters serve two main functions
"The meter disconnects supply anyway if the meter loses wireless connectivity"
Please tell me that's not true!!!!! That's an insane idea.
Lorry parks by smart meter, cuts off signal, all power goes off ......
fast is a relative term
"Network streaming has fast become an integral component of the modern AVR"
Well my fairly mundane 'DSGi special' internet radio/media streamer was introduced in 2006, and was harldy pioneering then, so 'fas't isn't the right term here.
While I'm being grumpy, thiis a tech site, so some idea what "audiophile grade ICEpower Energy HD digital amplification" actually means (if anything) in electronics terms would be good.
Posted in GM puts the brake on Volt e-car output
3600 unsold cars parked up
Let us hope the batteries handle long term storage better than the Tesla ones....
ah, think I finally get it.
So, currently it isn't unusual to transmit via HP and VP on the same frequency at the same time, this concept takes the principle further by using a whole range of angular polarisations between HP and VP. Possibly.
Can't see how that will work in the real world where any refelections of the signals will start causing interference between them and a loss of orthogonality.
Re: History is written by the winners..
Well there''s always Wikipedia then :-/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose
or:-
http://www.minhas.net/culture/indianpeople/jcbose.htm
History is written by the winners..
"Since Marconi first demonstrated wireless communications in 1895,"
J.C. Bose, my all time science hero, arguably got there first:-
http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html
Re: Streetside location
I submitted a draft patent application for that 10+ years ago, turned down on the basis of prior art.... For sure there are plenty of base stations dotted around now in streetlamp like hardware.
O&M and backhaul have always been big issues when looking at rolling out loads of little base staions as opposed to fewer big ones - look how long it's taking Femtocells to get any traction.
Re: 4G LTE?
We get this comment every time 4G is mentioned :-/
The ITU moved the goalposts around 2 years ago so that vanilla R8 LTE could be called 4G.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374564,00.asp
Posted in Nokia Asha 201 Qwerty phone
Re: No 3G?
LOL (through gritted teeth) I recall being subjected to a death by PPT in 2003 (Feb 12 to be accurate) about how nobody would be buying GSM infrastrusture by 2005, hence there as no more need for the site I worked at. They got that well and truly wrong.
LTE IS 4G
The ITU moved the goalposts at least 2 -3 years ago so that vanilla LTE met the requirements.
multifunction devices
The Technicolor TG870 does wifi + ADSL + femto + USB connectivity for a media server
http://marcomtelecomms.co.za/WebFiles/Femto/TG870/DS_Technicolor_TG870.pdf
Been around for a while, but never seen one in the flesh.
Yeah, several Finns pointed out some degree of commonality with Hungarian, so I think it is true. Having lived in Finland for a few months it's a bad ass language to try and guess the meaning of words, for sure - other than those they've just imported from English and added a vowel on the end. Back to the Nokia parts database!
induktanssi = inductor - not difficult to guess
kondensaattori = condenser = capacitor - not difficult to guess
Vastus = resistor - no chance!
suomi indeed
Many moons ago I worked for a certain Finnish (well it was then) telecoms company, I needed some cable ties, at that time the parts system was still in Finnish, so I asked one of my Finnish comrades what cable ties was in Finnish. He scrawls a word down on a post-it note, I dutifully enter it into the parts system, no results. I check my spelling with a couple of other Finns, they just laugh.
Turns out my comrade from the North had actually written down the word for pubic hair; who says Finns don't have a sense of humour ;-)
P.S. cable tie in Finnish is nippuside just in case anyone needs to know.
pubic hair / ladygarden is pillunkarva
Presumably they'll shut down all but the most profitable / least lossy stores and flog off any tangible assets,
Posted in O2 smears 4G trial over capital
HSPA+ is already 'combat proven' to a fair degree by many operators; the idea of a trial network is to try out new stuff and see if it breaks. Vodafone are keen to push HSPA+ as their main tool for mobile broadband, presumably O2 want to try out something 'better'.
2G into 3G
Technically there's nothing much to stop it working here, it's more of a legal issue as outlined in the article.
optional
I assume this would be 98% of population coverage, as 98% georphical coverage would be a tad expensive to implement.
Not so Sure Signal
Mine allows me to make 15 minute plus phone calls, but there's a 25% chance it'll fall over when I terminate the call, and when it does fall over, I have to reboot the femto and my router.
Plus it does occasionally fall over for no apparent reason, maybe once a week. Once it managed to jam my 3G coverage, so I had to switch to 2G to get any signal. Oh, and it used to fall over as soon as I started uploading anything via my ADSL, but a firmware upgrade of my router seems to have cured that one.
Having said that it is sufficiently useful to justify its existence, my in house coverage has gone from maybe 1 bar to 5 bars most of the time.
Can't see how using femtos will fly in pubs and such like, not enough capacity, unless they make a 'super femto'; but then that's almost a Pico.
HDTV format wars
Circa 1934:-
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/technology/technology3.html
Posted in Ten... Freeview HD recorders
@Taysider
Does export to PC work with HD content? I thought most of these boxes, at least the 'big name' ones, locked down HD content so it can only be replayed on the box it was recorded on, I was hoping some of the more 'left field' brands might not have been so rigorous about DRM.
Posted in UK patent office spawns free search site
Huh? they've always been free
From the European Patent Office at least:-
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/?locale=en_EP
Agree with MAE on the language, you have to use the word 'plurality' as often as possible IMX in patent applications.
4G: the goalposts were moved!
Can't recall exactly when, maybe 18 months ago, but I'm pretty sure the ITU changed the definition of 4G such that vanilla LTE met the definition, so it is legitimate to call it 4G.
See the following for example:-
http://www.lightreading.com/blog.asp?blog_sectionid=958&doc_id=201850
Posted in Ofcom admits 4G auction will slip
no
"Not that the operators will complain; as long as no one else has 4G there's great incentive to push ahead quickly."
I think there should be a 'no' in front of the 'great' or that sentence doesn't make sense.
Posted in Cambridge Audio iD100 hi-fi dock
Meh
A ten quid cable adaptor with a 140 quid shiny shiny paperweight attached; OK maybe another tenner for the remote control, make that 130 quid paperweight.
Posted in Sonos Play:3 network music player
@Tim Walker
Maybe worth looking at a Squeezebox Duet on the Logitech site, they have some 'blemished box' ones for 120 notes:-
http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/special-offers/blemished-box/devices/7116
no gapless playback!
unimpressive an such an expensive box
400 quid.!!!! no thankyou
Far too expensive for a streamer that offers little more functionality than my 50 quid 'Logik' box - which doesn't have a 4 second delay when I press the buttons on the remote; as for 24/96; why bother when so few people can hear any difference, and only then when played really really loud, see following for example:-
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195
Posted in Ofcom checks up on mobile coverage
@Red Bren
Yes there are a variety of products that will do that, in the old days a phone with modded SW would be used to report signal level and quality back via SMS, a variety of fancy tools available these days, for example:-
http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/product/romes.html
The Ericsson (now Ascom) TEMS system has been a commonly used tool for yonks:-
http://www.cn.ascom.com/cn/scanning-technical.pdf
where's the business case?
As already pointed out local/regional radio makes very little if any money for anyone, regional TV has all but disappeared from ITV, so who on earth is going to stump up the cash to run local TV?
That's assuming UK Freeview boxes can cope with these extra muxes.
Posted in Pure Sirocco 550 music combo
wouldn't buy PURE again
Another DMX-50 owner with a dead CD player here, now using a 1989 vintage Sony player via AUX 1 on the PURE. Oh, mine loses its memory now and again, so I have to reflash the firmware. Seems like British Leyland's modus operandi; good concept, poor execution. Amazon reviews show other PURE products with the CD issue so I certainly wouldn't buy another.
Yes you could get the same functionality with netbook plus other bits but it's a lot clunkier and not everyone wants their living room to look like PCWorld.
rain fade
Indeed, depends to a degree on the transmission frequency but it's normal to allow around 30dB for rain fade when doing a microwave point to point link budget, so if it's marginal on a dry day it will disappear completely in heavy rain.
The lack of 999 capability would be my main worry.
what a silly idea
I agree with Vic and Paul Turner, this is a daft idea, most of this 'stray' energy has been transmitted with a purpose, and that purpose wasn't providing someone else with a very inefficient source of 'free' power.
Good luck trying to make a mobile phone call with a few dozen of these things attenuating the signal between you and the base station.
@AC
"The last useful new feature added to Word - the squiggly red underlining. And that was, what, over 15 years ago?"
IMHO WYSIWYG font selection was the last useful Word update, that was in Office 2000 IIRC. Even then that's only in a home user context, at work I know what Times New Roman and Arial look like.
@AC
"There seem to be a lot of readers who've never checked their existing fan rotation speeds (it's often shown in the BIOS, or HWmonitor or similar will show it if it's a Window box)."
The issue is more than rpm, this system seems to rely on creating turbulence, that will increase acoustic noise. In addition this is a heavy lump of metal doing 2000rpm, rather than a lightweight plastic or ali. 'normal' fan, which means more energy and more destructive power.
Agree with Colin Millar, Peltiers are very much a last resort due to cost, poor efficiency and long term reliability issues.
