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OMG 4G networks are now delivering only 3G speeds

OMG 4G networks are now delivering only 3G speeds

Brits clamouring to sign new mobile contracts to get their hands on speedier networks might want to pause for thought: 4G speeds have halved in the past year just as demand rose.

Which? said:
We … found that average 4G speeds are slowing – from 19Mbps to 10.16Mbps in just under a year. The reason? It’s likely because more customers have signed up to 4G, thus increasing demand on the network and slowing speeds.

The good news is that as customers continue to sign up, we won’t necessarily see speeds fall any further [ie. they will stay at 10Mbs]. That’s because providers are hoisting more masts to cope with the extra demand.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened to 3G services [that provide up to 14Mbs], and (un)surprisingly the more expensive 4G alternative was the solution – you suckers

Is 4G really better than 3G?

So the offered service could not actually deliver what was promised once user started competing for the bandwidth. They would have know this from the outset and only catered for the initial few thousand connections.

4G suffers even more than 3G from mast density: to have full performance you need good clear access to your local mast/s, and they need to be close together (high density).

Of course this is no more than the usual story of never-actually-delivering-headline-speed: sell a product advertised as fast, whilst the small print relinquishes all guarantee of actual performance.

When did you last belive in quoted ADLS performance, for example? Or wifi speeds?

In most cases the issue is not so much of what the technology can theoretically provide but, in the case of wireless, local prevailing conditions, and most significantly, the actual ability of the company’s infrastructure to deliver the promised capacity – this is what’s happening in the above survey. I have certainly seen ADSL being affected like this too – look what happens to download speeds at busy times, and why ‘bandwidth management’ (throttling) is used.

To get any chance of full throughput you pretty much need a proper network cable connection. Internally, that’s Cat 5/6 and for broadband something like Virgin Media cable service (not the ADSL offering) or possibly ADSL/Fibre (I have no data on performance).

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see one of the first smartphones, Palm Treo 600

see one of the first smartphones, Palm Treo 600

so replacing my trusty pda and Nokia

They were very rare (unless you paid top dollar) outside of the business community, but luck lead me to discover one, brand new, in a quiet county mobile phone shop, going for the princely sum of, I think it was, £12.

I remember how surprised the girl was when asking if they had one, and my surprise when she said yes.

The operator exchanged it after some damage, a few years later, for a Treo 650 which I still have and use today.

I miss the Palm platform .. too far ahead of its time, like so many things.

So no, the Blackberry wasn’t the first.

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Tech news & thoughts this week #energy #co2 #smartphone #windows8 #teach #razr #4g

There’s no sense blaming the big six for soaring bills
Don’t rage about your gas bill this winter, but shout at your MP about the need for a realistic long-term energy strategy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9606162/Theres-no-sense-blaming-the-big-six-for-soaring-bills.html

Leaving aside “peak oil” scaremongering, we must accept that carbon fuel supplies will remain permanently volatile as global demand continues to rise. Our own North Sea nest egg is running out, but even if it wasn’t it would still be affected by global price trends — determined as they are by the threat of conflict in Iran on shipments of liquefied petroleum gas from the Gulf, by President Putin’s cold hand on pipelines from Russia to Europe, by rising energy use in emerging industrial nations, and by events such as the earthquake which caused the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The response that is needed is, first, major investment in national grid and gas storage facilities, so that short-term fluctuations in wholesale markets can be absorbed and domestic tariffs don’t have to be loaded to protect against them.

Vince Cable: making the transition to low carbon economy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/earth/statoil/9640544/vince-cable-low-carbon-economy.html
but real questions are being asked about the ‘green investment’: is it all coming from subsidies and tariffs (‘dividend’) imposed on energy customers? Incidentally, most wind turbines are made in Germany, solar panels from China; the local workers are installers and maintainers .. All for green energy, but whilst it’s a political card is it really being deployed in the best way?

George Osborne urges energy giants to ‘look again’ at price rises as npower blames Government green policy
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-2217203/terrified-going-80.html

Microsoft sold 4m Windows 8 upgrades in first weekend
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/377851/microsoft-sold-4m-windows-8-upgrades-in-first-weekend

Does crowdfunding work?
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/377242/does-crowdfunding-work

Which site is best for DIY web publishing? http://www.pcpro.co.uk/realworld/377803/which-site-is-best-for-diy-web-publishing
Tumblr has a lot going for it, and sets a high standard for modern, attractive, streamlined posting of regularly updated, media-heavy content. The downside, though, is that Tumblr is all about streaming chronologically ordered posts and currently doesn’t let you create pages that are accessed via more traditional site navigation. .. It’s great for personal blogging and many other scenarios, such as multiple authors contributing to an event-based site, or for a separate news-orientated blog as an adjunct to a brochureware site, but it isn’t the right choice for all users. .. Tumblr is pretty well sweeping the board as a modern blogging platform, but it’s by no means the only CMS available. Open Source CMS currently lists 277 competitors, but there’s a strong argument for the safety of numbers by sticking with the most popular options – namely WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

Motorola Razr i review
http://www.itpro.co.uk/643618/motorola-razr-i-review

Google gets a wake up call from Apple VP (vice president)
http://www.itpro.co.uk/643747/google-gets-a-wake-up-call-from-apple-vp

Google Nexus 4 smartphone specs and pricing revealed
http://www.itpro.co.uk/643771/google-nexus-4-smartphone-specs-and-pricing-revealed
As expected, the Nexus 4 is manufactured by LG and will feature a 4.7in screen with a 1280 x 768 resolution and pixel density of 320ppi. .. The device will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5GHz quad-core processor, which will be paired with 2GB of RAM. The device will offer 8GB of on-board storage, but there will be no memory expansion slot available. .. Other key features include an 8-megapixel rear camera and NFC connectivity. .. shipping will start on 30 October

Forever doesn’t mean forever, warns ads watchdog
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/377737/forever-doesnt-mean-forever-warns-ads-watchdog

EE 4G data caps that are broken in 5 mins
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/377695/ee-4g-data-caps-that-are-broken-in-5-mins

£20k scholarships to boost Computer Science teaching
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/education/377662/20k-scholarships-to-boost-computer-science-teaching
The government is offering 50 scholarships worth £20,000 each to graduates wanting to train as Computer Science teachers. – yes, that’s 50 across the whole country ..
Gove said the government was trying to “produce the next Sir Tim Berners-Lee” – who actually has a degree in physics from Oxford. And contrary to Gove’s opinion, Tim didn’t invent the Internet .. doh
Also, computing skill doesn’t necessarily come from having a degree: many professionals studied it as a profession/ vocation, not as an academic subject. Experience of current working practices comes from actually working in the business, not from courses studied in college. This was always the advantage of FE, employing working specialists, an ace being thrown away.
And many can remember the dubious ability of some university lecturers to teach .. Bet they have 2:1s and above (the minimum to get govt. support to qualify).

Why Office 365 is far more important than Windows 8
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/realworld/377881/why-office-365-is-far-more-important-than-windows-8