* Posts by Graeme Hill

15 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Feb 2008

Everything Everywhere to be Nothing Nowhere in rebrand

Graeme Hill
Coat

As they can't make their mind up on a name, how about.....

"QuestionMark" and the logo could be "?"

Could Vodafone nab 3 UK after T-Orange merger?

Graeme Hill
Flame

Split em off......

The only reason the government split BT in two, and had the regulatory power to do so was because they were a (previously) state owned monopoly. This meant that as the infrastructure was put in place by the taxpayer, BT were gaining a huge advantage as they owned all the infrastructure in place, and pretty much controlled every call being made. The mobile networks (O2, Orange and Vodafone) all built their networks using investments from business and the public, and have never been a "monopoly", so splitting them in two would be a kick in the teeth for the staff who would invariably lose their jobs, and also for the investors in the companies who stayed as investors when OFCOM nearly bankrupted them with the 3G licence sales

Cell phones don't fry brains, boffins say

Graeme Hill
Coffee/keyboard

I wonder......

..... if all the people who say mobile phones cause brain cancer actually use mobile phones themselves. Bet they do, and i also bet they would be the first people to complain if there was no mobile coverage in their home area, after they vetoed the mobile companies putting up a new cell tower down the road from them.

T-Mobile coughs to data theft

Graeme Hill
Flame

Conspiracy theory alert.....

Wonder if it was Orange paying for the info to pass to dealers/reps to get a better deal on the merger?

Mines the flame retardant jacket with the official secrets folder in the pocket, and the bag with the stolen government laptop is mine as well.....

Vodafone gives up on roaming charges

Graeme Hill
Coat

@ Anonymous coward with the £160 usage

Interestingly enough, if you are abroad and using your UK mobile number, anyone calling you from the UK is charged at the same rate as if you had been in the UK (thats the good bit about roaming). The 75p charge is a connection setup (which will be waived if the above is correct during June, July and August), and then you use your home tariff, so if you have minutes available you can use them. E.G. a 25 minute call from Portugal to the UK would cost about £10 on the roaming rates, but on Vodafone Passport (providing you have UK minutes available) would cost you 75pence including VAT (YES, THATS 75 PENCE, 3/4 of a pound, 75 pennies, or a 50p + a 20p + a 5p coin - or any combination of coin of the realm that totals up to 75p) and 25 of your inclusive minutes. Receiving a call is cheap as well. You could ring me if I was in a passport country, and it would cost me 75p to receive the call, and I would be able to chat away for 1 hour on that call at no further cost to myself.

QUOTE "This deal seems good for those who need to be in contact with people back in the UK, but for local calls is still better and cheaper (for both parties) to get a local sim card. Remember that those calling you locally on a UK network are calling an international number and get charged big time"

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE explain how ringing a portugese number would work out cheaper for someone in the UK to ring from their mobile, than ringing a UK number and using their inclusive minutes?????

mines the flame retardant one, with the matching tin-foil hat

Graeme Hill
Coat

Wandered into Germany???

Surely, if I was in france, and rang my mates UK mobile to find out that he was in Germany, your report is incorrect, as I would be ringing a UK mobile number, and therefor it would be a free call from my minutes.

And to think I tell my kids off for spotting this sort of thing when I tell them something....

Apple sued over iPhone e-bookiness

Graeme Hill
Joke

Can I jump on the bandwagon......

I have just filed my own patent.

It's for an device which can be used for a multitude of various unspecified tasks, and can use a variety of unspecified inputs to produce even more outputs (type unspecified) with or without user interface, and has an unspecified form factor built using unspecified materials.

Think that covers it, now where is the number for that law firm......

Nokia N97 to land late Q1

Graeme Hill
Thumb Up

Looks nice.......

..... as long as it can handle the transition between 3g and 2g when travelling between inner city and rural areas which seems to be a problem with the new wave of 3g phones that have hit the market in the last few years, adn the battery can cope with an "allways open" window.

Holiday text messages to cost less than 9p

Graeme Hill
Pirate

Stop Meddling and get a life Ms Redding

Why can she not realise that using a mobile phone abroad is a premium service. When I travel, I can't take my water supplier, my gas supplier, my electricity supplier, my home broadband or my home phone. Why should a mobile be classed as anything other than a premium service which you have to pay premium prices for? It is not an essential utility, contrary to what most teenagers will tell you. It is a soddin luxury item. Ms Redding should wind her neck in, and stop penalising companies which offer a PREMIUM service.

Vodafone presents punter with £500k phone bill

Graeme Hill
Coat

Per minute charging.......

Based on a £35 tariff, a £500k bill would work out (on a 30 day month) at £11.19 per minute. If the bill was before VAT then the charges would be £13.16.

Data charges would be different.......

Mobile broadband 3Gb tariff (which is £15 according to their website) would equal approx 33335 Gb of data (which is a hell of a lot of iPlayer usage) working out on a 30 day month at approx 750Mb per minute (or about 12Mb per second). To get to the 300GB of data to run this bill up, this would only be possible outside of the UK, as 300GB in the UK would result in a bill of about £4500 (considerably less, and easier to swallow) unless data was being charged at £1666 per Gb (again assuming in these calculations that they are allready including VAT)

If you know any provider in the UK you can get that kind of speed with, please let me know.

Mines the one with Live Fast, Die Broke on the back

3G iPhone not ready for the enterprise?

Graeme Hill
Jobs Horns

eBay will be flooded.....

..... with the first gen Jesus(tm) phones. Prepare for the second coming, and throw out your old idols for steve has made them obsolete (although some would say lack of 3G, and restrictions on 3rd party apps, made them obsolete before release)..........

Heathrow T5 security tackles Transformers t-shirt threat

Graeme Hill
Coat

Post open for people who want to be minor megalomaniacs...

Please send your cv to security at T5. We will require you to take an intelligence test, and if you score higher than the pencil, we would not be able to employ you........

Its stupidity gone even more stupid. Reminds me of the uproar over the French Connection t-shirts (remember them, they said FCUK on them)..............

Mines the 1940's leather trenchcoat and matching fedora hat please.........

O2: We didn't know we were capping 3G data speeds

Graeme Hill
Joke

Fully HSDPA Enabled Network?????

Someone at O2 has been very busy, as back at the end of February, a spokesman told the guardian newspaper that they expected to have 80% 3G coverage by the end of June. In addition, I have just checked my local postcode on their website http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/?Search=Search for 3G coverage, and strangely enough, there is none, so, one could easily surmise there is no HSDPAcoverage either (checked this as well, just to be on the safe side, and HSDPA coverage is non-existant). So, when they say "The O2 network is fully HSDPA-enabled and we will be further increasing the maximum speeds available on HSDPA throughout the year, up to 7.2 MBps", which part of the network are they referring to????

Someone should tell slOw2 that their network extends past the boundaries of the M25 (into the bits of the map that say "Here Be Dragons") so they can at least give consistent information from week to week

Phorm launches data pimping fight back

Graeme Hill
Coat

If I opt out....

"Long term, we believe if you're opted-out the experience you're going to get is quite crappy because you're going to get bombarded with ads."

Does this mean if i opt out, i will get double adds on the pages i view? will someone come round to my house and wave things in front of my monitor so I cant see what im doing (which would make my internet experience a bit crappy)? or will my ISP come round and re-educate me on my opting out habits????

Methinks that my internet experience will remain the same as it is now (allright unless i have to call my isp at a premium rate to talk to someone over the other side of the world who speaks less english than my 6 month old child)

mines the donkey jacket with the mittens on a string through the sleeves................

ISP data deal with former 'spyware' boss triggers privacy fears

Graeme Hill
Coat

Theres enough adverts on the telly, which is why I try not to watch it...

OK, may be a silly question, but what amount of data will they be sending through in these targetted ads????

If you have an "Unlimited" (cough cough) broadband with a "fair usage policy" (cough cough), when these adverts that are being sent to you push you over this (usually ridiculously low) limit, how will the ISP respond to your breaking their fair usage policy?

Also, my wife browses the net quite a bit, and I sure as hell dont want adverts for makeup, perfume and other womanly things popping up when I'm trying to read El-Reg.

Mines the tinfoil jacket, hat, glove and scarf set..........