Thus the security forces need a dedicated network, and dedicated spectrum, to keep them organised

The UK networks are able to prioritise emergency services (and other "important") mobile users. The British can't be the only ones able to do that, can they ?

Building and running your own mobile nationwide infrastructure (Whether it's in the UK or USA) is not a cheap or trivial job. Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just pay carriers for what you want ? Even if they can't do it now, a nice big fat government contract will surely persuade them?

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

- Sagan/Truzzi/et al

The key to teaching is the teacher

The most important thing, IMHO, in teaching is the teacher. Someone who understands their subject, can explain the subject clearly, impart passion into their teaching, inspire the pupil to learn on their own, and have the patience of a saint in dealing with pupils who have various levels of interest in the subject.

I don't think any computer or software could be said to be able to do any of those things.

From usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-06-15-hawking_x.htm back in 2006

The wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, communicates with an electronic speech synthesizer. Hawking was asked why his computerized voice has an American accent.

He said he once considered using a machine that gave him a French accent, but he did not because his wife would divorce him.

Smells like a large government IT contract to me. Gazing into my crystal ball, I predict a failure to meet functionality targets and budgetary deadlines. Oh - and blame firmly placed on the last government for the failure.

In the pre-VoIP days, PABX manufacturers made their money from the line cards on their systems. (2K upwards for a card which was just a 32-channel 8KHz ADC ? WTF !) And if you wanted a phone which had a basic menu display (so you didn't have to remember cryptic codes to activate features) the digital line card cost even more. Then there was the price of the digital handsets themselves.

Now, in the era of SIP VoIP, manufacturers realise that this revenue stream is under threat. You don't need specialist hardware to run a phone system, except maybe to interface to traditional telephoney (ISDN, POTS) All they're selling you is software (Especially the management side of it). So they need to lock you in to their ecossystem. "Of course you can use a third party SIP phone: But the license to configure it onto our system will cost twice the license for one of our phones (Which cost twice the price of your cheap SIP phone). Oh, you want us to talk real SIP, not our special version that only our products support...?"

Telephoney manufacturers are in real danger of shooting themselves in the foot. A Windows/Android/iPhone smartphone (OK, not the most expensive ones) can be had for less then the higher end corporate VoIP handsets, does a darn sight more and gives the user the street cred of having a fancy smart phone rather than a bland corporate phone. Mobile companies are also offering quite interesting tariff deals now (free line rental and free calls between mobiles on your corporate contract) OK, so coverage can be a problem, I agree. But with a mobile, *you* have no infrastructure to support. (Unless you buy some pico/femto cells to boast coverage - and they just plug into your IP LAN, so just another dumb endpoint)

But the bigger problem for PABX manufacturers is utilisation. People just don't seem to be using phones any more. Email, IM, Facebook/web & Skype are what a lot of people are using to communicate nowadays. If you're the Finance Director, and you walk around your building and see phones just gathering dust and not being used, you have to ask the tough question: Do we *need* an internal phone system ? It'll be a brave Finance Director who says "Let's not have a phone system" but I can see it happening in the future.

I've worked with phone systems for 20+ years, on systems in size from 20 to 20K end points. I can see the writting on the wall for my profession.

With the power of commodity hardware, it's hardly surprising that companies are investing less in hardware and more in software.

I manage mobile phones in a commercial environment. I often get staff asking me why handsets cost so much under our commercial contract (which has no up-front phone subsidy/interest free load) when they can go to the high street and get phones for free or a low ammount (e.g. £50).

Once I show them the maths of their consumer contract and compare it to our business tariff, they realise that their consumer tariff costs more than our business tariff over the same time for the same handset.

We can make those photons go faster

The only way you can do that is to change the medium they go through. And then there's this trivial limit called "c" - known to many as the speed of light in a vacuum.

Cables

I think a big problem with Thunderbolt is the cables. There are few companies making them, and those that are available are quite expensive.

Another option

One option may be for them to have some kind of membership/loyalty club. If you're not a member, all you get to do is buy, and ask no questions. If you are a member, you get to ask questions, and over the year, the cost of your membership is refunded against the cost of your purchases.

Touch Call

My local running shop has a policy that if they give you advise on shoes & you try shoes on, but don't buy from, they charge you a tenner or so. If you do buy from them, there's no extra charge for the advice.

I can totally understand why the shop does it. At times, I've spent nearly an hour trying shoes and discussing my needs. That time costs them money. I've never bothered to see how much cheaper my shoes are online as I value the help & advice they give. I'm happy to pay extra for the service they give me.

But charging just for looking ? Hmmm, not sure.

Apples & Oranges ?

The thing that concerns me about the benchmarks, is that the drives weren't all configured the same.

Some where RAID 0, some JBODs, and others were one drive partitioned up.

Surely a better comparision would have been to have all the drives configured the same?

Interface 1 & ROM compatability.

The article mentions that the Interface 1 had fixes for bugs in the Spectrum ROM. I seem to remember this caused problems with some programs. I definitely remember seeing code samples in Speccy mags about detecting if an Interface 1 was present so you could take account of the ROM changes.

I'd pay, if...

I use YouTube a lot to watch music videos, clips from shows, etc. I'd tolerate a small monthly fee if (and it's a big if) there's no advertising and there's no big brother tracking.

NSN would be issuing the bonds this spring and would use the money raised to pay off some debts

So they're borrowing money to pay off other debts. What could possibly go wrong ?

Devil's advocate

The problem with tendering for any custom software is evaluating the bids. It's not just a case of choosing the lowest price. You also have to make sure the bidders actually stand a chance of delivering on their promise(s). Oh, and saying "But don't pay them/sue them if they fail to deliver" isn't the solution. As a buyer, your aim is to get your requirements met first time, on time. If you end up calling in lawyers, all you do is delay the work even more and spend lots of money on lawyers.

I have no magic solution to this problem. This is something suppliers, government & lawyers need to work together on.

Vodafone SureSignal Portal

Someone at Vodafone told me that the SureSignal registration portal will only accept mobile numbers which are on consumer contracts. If you have any kind of business contract, the SureSignal portal will fail to recognise you, and hence require you to phone up customer disservice.