Posts by Andy Watt

Bloke with hammer fixes London's Olympic clock

ERROR -- 201 -- 01 --

I see the Clock is running some kind of apache/SQL mishmash. Swatch should adopt closed-source approaches.

Seriously though, this obviously was tested, but NOT FOR 24 HOURS STRAIGHT.

Clueless c****.

Government flies kite for VAT changes

Agree - £130m? Chicken feed.

Our government would rather piss about with small tax loopholes they know they can shut than get tough with companies who strong arm the elected government of the land into giving them massive tax breaks.

Vodafone's V2 arm in Luxembourg has saved them a fortune by first purchasing Mannesman and then channeling profits: a long protracted legal battle with HMRC finally terminated when this government came in, took the HMRC lawyers off the case, installed someone who likes big business and settled for £1.2Bn of an estimated alleged £6Bn tax bill.

Also present in this lovely tale is a revolving door staffing system between Vodafone and the government (govt being advised on tax affairs by a former financial director of Vodafone) and George Osborne taking a trip to India to... Publicise vodafone.

£130m on small items sounds like they're trying to appear as if they can do something when in reality they're utterly powerless in the face of globalisation and companies who are now above the law of any nation state through their sheer financial punching power.

Faces of the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 revealed

I think this story ought to be quietly retired...

Or at least retracted from the list rotating on the front page. This one's making a fool out of itself. Let it go to sleep and never wake up again. It won't be missed.

Either that, or change the headline to something like "speculation reaches fever pitch as photoshoppers go wild in the fruit aisles"

Apple 'greed' tax spreads beyond music, movies, magazines

Isn't this the American Way?

I thought this kind of corporate chicanery was standard practise - become the "best" (note - I'm using that in quotes to define "sell a lot of high priced tech which can consume media of all kinds"), then when you know you've got the lions' share of that market, start monetizing as much as you can.

Everybody on here seems to be living in a hippy dreamworld - why should Apple suddenly start wearing sandals and chilling out? The iPad still has a head start - make hay while the sun shines.

Do you protest like this when petrol stations close to each other monitor each others prices and keep them maxed out? I doubt it.

BTW, although I'm an iFondleDevice user, I don't do in-app purchases as I'm Gen Xer and don't really believe in them. One day the whole frickin cloud's gonna dump torrential and we'll all be soooo screwed...

Facebook's position on real names not negotiable for dissidents

Oh yeah? And what about the other rules...

And I quote - from "http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf":

4. Registration and Account Security

...

5. You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.

They're not policing that one very well either, are they? I know of an awful lot of under 13s (friends kids) who have FB IDs - and shouldn't. In addition, I'm sure this was 14 until very VERY recently. Watch out for it crawling lower or even disappearing.

As a paranoid aside - check out what happens if you try to use the Wayback engine to view the terms and conditions page for facebook:

---

Robots.txt Query Exclusion.

We're sorry, access to http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.

---

Frankly, Facebook want their shit-tasting aggregating cake to be force fed to all of us - their business model relies on it - so anything which subverts it is great in my book.

Long live the resistance - fill the book with insane, inane drivel which pollutes brand loyalty concepts and pisses all over statistics for brand mentions. Expose their model for what it is - ruthless trawling of personal data, given up by the masses without thinking.

Zuckerberg thinks you're a moron - he has since college - so prove him right and talk nothing but random untrue drivel on your facebook page, and call yourself whatever you want.

New auto-crowd tech writes better articles than pro writers TRUE

Was this entire article written that way?

Seriously, so many grammar errors... I can see this system would generate a highly uniform low-quality output, with no chance for an outstanding article.

Android bites big chunk out of Apple iPad market share

Yawn...

Another day, another prod at the geeks. Rise up, little souls, and argue! (ps don't forget to click on a few ads while you're frothing at the mouth about closed platforms and throwing insults at each other).

My 2peth - sure, android will do huge things, but that single platform is appealing to corps in more tham one way: do you see Tesco advertising their android app? Are BT advertising their Wifi using a samsung galaxy tab?

I know, it's fickle, but the homogenous nature of the infrastructure appeals to suits... And not to geeks. The geeks won't inherit the earth, because they're usually too busy arguing about the ethics of open systems, Apis, who owns the device, etc etc etc etc...

Ultimately, the public (80/20 rule - 80% don't care?) will go with the popular shiny choice. Which at the moment looks like apple shaped gear.

No judgements - just trying to call it like I see it.

Netgear CEO says 'closed' Apple is doomed

Idiot.

Netgear: purveyors of some of the worst third-party produced rebranded unreliable plastic crap on the planet. His little rant sounds like the usual cry of the old guard, another one who thinks he can see black Swans coming because he's seen it all before. Wonder what other companies and products he's written off while netgear took the piss out of consumers with routers which die after 12 months, USB wifi sticks which don't get driver updates any more...

I don't listen to dinosaurs like this. Closed mindedness is more dangerous than closed platforms. Thinking you know how it's going to turn put is hubris, and it always stinks!

Facebook facing fall-down issues

Software entropy, I reckon.

FB api using applications seem to have all stopped working recently - constant tinkering and extension by FB now causing core systems to fall offline?

A victim of its own response to security and constant profile layout updates to try and stop itself being the next myspace?

The software telomeres on this behemoth are all used up. Watch it stutter and flicker like a dying, crap Chinese manufactured LCD TV.

But for fun, while it dies, delete all your personal data and replace it with complete comedy drivel! I've enjoyed it. Currently listed as Andy Basexperience tofu-burger.

Apple tightens rules for iPad news delivery

Typos...

"Apple and New Corporation..."

I think murdoch's world domination has been in progress for a while.

I had thought that El Reg's fruit-baiting was dying back - I see this comment thread will run and run!

Don't go blaming apple exclusively. Their grasping is understandable, if you jump into bed with newscorp you can expect them to get pissy about any competition - witness current machinations here in the UK with the sky takeover. Apple are hedging their bets on content provision and taking advantage of the opportunity to turn news and periodical distribution towards their existing business model. It's predictable.

I'm sure they can't cut off websites. Pay wall news sites will still work. Big deal, apps will fall away a little. HTML5 enhanced sites, anyone?

Samsung plans to smash Android rivals..what about the iPad?

Cost...?

Samsung may have good parts control, but they seem to have missed the point with tab pricing.

"According to teardowns by iSuppli, its BOM is $205.22, far less than the $264.27 figure for the 3G, 16Gb iPad"

And the tab is at £500, with the iPad at £429.

Flash? Apparently it slows the browser right down on the tab.

Good to see a competitor here, but it's early to say samsung have got the right ideas. Good article!

Rethinking the iPhone

HOW MUCH?

Dear god, your tariffs suck! In the UK we've got far better ones than that (also far better 3G networks)

On another note though - I bought a 3GS sim free in Italy last year for ~£600 and then got a great deal for a £30 tariff from vodafone.

I think you've highlighted something here though, which is that tariffs are getting so long (24 months is common in the UK for iPhones and androids) that there's more opportunity than ever for the middleman (the operator) adding a fat layer of profit over the costs (handset, network costs).

Go sim free and ensure you keep a competitive 12 month tariff and I think it'll work out cheaper. Another input into this is lifespan - hopefully the iPhone will last 4 years (I nursed a P990 to 2.5 years without trouble) - I've already got a replacement home button stashed away in case.

That's the advantage of smart phones - the software update cycles, plus ability to fairly painlessly wipe clean and restart, hopefully mean the handsets will last a long time. And that's coming from a fellow geek who is getting less geek.

AVG snaps up DroidSecurity

Well, that's smart phones screwed...

Antivirus arrives, performance and battery life run screaming for the exit. Nice.

Google Android chief smacks Steve Jobs with Linux speak

Eh? Headline?

This is a great article - it's balanced, thoughtful and well composed, I reckon. Had to double take - good job Mr Metz, you only said cult once. And no fanboi?

Actually, in all seriousness, pointing out the difference in approach here says it all; a geek posts 140 characters pointing out how inaccessible to 99% of the population android's precious openness is, and steve jobs points out how closed the iphone is. Who's right? I'd rather walk away from the argument and work it out for myself... Keep reading product reviews.

It worries me that these expensive and powerful platforms are apparently only good for a few months on cutting edge though, according to this rubin fellow. Cmon, hold on tomyour phone for a bit, see a couple of OS upgrades, live with the damn thing and save then planet some strife. Or some junk.

Angry Birds addicts crash GetJar site

Hee hee!

Giggling fanboi on deck, iPad and iPhone Bird Enabled...

Vodafone moves 360 goalposts

They'll never learn.

Voda, you suck. Embrace the inevitable; you're a pipe (that's not an insult).

Adjust your business. Stop pissing around with services and charge properly for data. Sink cash into making yours absolutely the best network for data. Be the future of mobile data in the UK.

Vizzavi, vodafone360 and all points in between. Over weaning ambition. Look what it did to Nokia.

In the meantime, I will never ever purchase a subsidized handset from Vodafone again, instead opting for what I hope is a 3-5 year replacement cycle for sim free devices, so I can enjoy them as the manufacturer intended and without that miserable pile of garish crap which is Vodafone branding (I believe they paid a 6 figure sum for those awesomely bad icons).

Apple trade marks 'There's an app for that'

There's a nap for that.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzsnort whassat? Anti apple story on Reg? Why d'you wake me up???

Inside Windows Phone 7: ghost of Zune

But why no multi tasking? (whine whine)

Ooo, how satisfying. Watching microsoft:

1. mandating approval of apps and demanding a fee to be in a developer program

2. Disallowing multitasking for the purposes of performance

3. Mandating particular development tools (or so it seems).

In the mobile device (with "OS") sphere, I still think this is still the best model to ensure compelling user experience, security, and a healthy system with as little fragmentation as possible.

WAC wiki creates Waikiki

(breathes in)

... Breathes out.

Nah, I won't keep it in on this one.

iPhone apps put user privacy at risk

Wow, it must be hard working for el reg

Keep the comments coming, all sounds good to me. This does feel like a weak article, at best - and buried in the paranoia is a nice comparison to the data android leaks, which to my mind looks rather more comprehensive!

Do keep writing these though reg, it's important we stay vigilant as this is an emerging threat - these devs are chip chip chipping away looking for revenue based on selling databases of personal information, esp in the mobile sphere.

We salute your vigilance.

Reseller touts cheap-as-chips 7in Android tablet

Umm..... the Apad? iRobot?

They're a bit late to the party, aren't they? eBay's been littered with 7" Android tablets for a while now, and with a damn sight better specs than that as well - 600MHz plus a 600MHz DSP? I think they're probably down towards £90 now?

Microsoft takes Oracle side in Google Java-phone attack

Only on gsm?

What crack are you smoking? No way a modern multimedia Windows phone would run only GSM. You mean quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE / WCDMA prob with HSUPA and HSDPA, surely...

'Larry and Sergey's HTML5 balls drained my resources'

Global leccy bills?

How many tons of CO2 did google waste with this little piece of bling?

How much CO2?....

I'm being deliberately awkward here - but how much fossil fuel generated energy did Google just consume? They can deplot this from their bloody labs in the US and inflict it on other nations... seriously, anyone got the smarts to do an estimate based on the number of dumb terminals - sorry - users who don't bother with alternative Google landing pages?

Dicking around like this looks pretty but constant fiddling usually results in BORKING.

Orange customers squeezed out of Facebook

Borked?

Seems pretty knackered on voda, too. I got nothing but an error page earlier on... The mobile app can't see notifications either.

FB on the tweak again? Has places knackered UK bookface?

General Motors bitchslaps Tesla with Range Anxiety™

Ummmm. yeah, OK, electric cars. And everything else...?

I've seen some electric trucks (up to about 3.5t I think) which had delivery ranges available. Fair enough.

But what about container shipping? Aircraft? And all the other stuff which keeps the human capital-generation machinery afloat? We're not suddently going to eat internet pages y'know.

If human enterprise has to shrink massively because we don't have the capacity to move goods and provide services anymore, then will we need that many cars?

I can see a bizarre future where we're working with computers but living near where we work, and either walking, cycling or riding horses there. Food will be seasonal and local again (no more crap strawberries in winter).

And there will be a damn sight less people. Especially if we spent a few decades turning vital land over to trying to keep petrol and diesel engines running.

So all this toss about electric cars and how we continue to justify our own existence in terms of bigger/better/faster/more is exactly that. When the oil runs out we'll have a lot more to contemplate than how to keep jeremy f***ing clarkson amused.

Apple livestreaming heralds Jobs-to-fanboi brain-linking

C'mon...

Seriously, I'm no troll. I'm not a "fanboi" either. My beef is with droning endless repetitive flame-baiting that Reg stories on Apple are becoming (the comment thread afterwards descends into the usual...). They're one dimensional crap! They used to be funnier, but now they can't even be bothered to come up with new ways to express "fanboi"...

Seriously, at this rate their ad impressions will fall. And that would be soooooooo bad.

This article's still a fail.. and I do have a grip.

I know El Reg likes to poke fun, but...

C'mon, this article was really poorly written, even for a comedy piece. It actually felt like I could feel the spittle particles hitting me as you spat out the vitriol - you sounded like the sort of person everybody tries to avoid as they've got red buttons that shouldn't be pushed... and when they are, step back and try to avoid ground zero.

Sorry mate, this one was a bit stale.

Java lobby lowers Android and iPhone defenses

Dead in the water as usual...

Too little, too late. The usual suspects (i.e. vodafone and the manufacturers) arguing the toss for _literally_ years. meanwhile implementing their own ideas and finally panicking when they realise the world has moved on and adopted other more unified platforms, and attempting to provide some of the same user experience quality concepts on their tired, labyrinthe, bloated, crap platforms.

I spent years working at Panasonic (about a year of it testing a J2ME platform implemented into a Comneon platform). We didn't use the TCK because it was ludicrously expensive. I see the developers who try their best to wrangle something useful out of J2ME are likewise shafted for cash on a regular basis.

"baking in" quality of the apps is a little pointless as well, as pointed out above the J2ME virtual machine implementations vary so damn widely thanks to operator and manufacturer whims that the inevitable endpoint is lowest common denominator cack.

One can only hope Android doesn't go the same way with the proliferation of platforms. Meanwhile, I'll stick with iOS.

Look upon the old guard, still standing to attention with cobwebs growing on their certification logos.... and despair.

Orange coughs to data network failure

Woops... have Ericsson provided you with another firmware upgrade?

I remember this happening just as orange were rolling out 3G and they upgraded their GGSNs and SGSNs... it's not just users who get shafted by firmware upgrades ;-)

Cynicism, grumpiness cause heart attacks, strokes

Well Duh....

Dear god, who funds this arse-backwardness?

Next: the University of East Anglia demonstrates conclusively that umbrellas cause cloudbursts!

Archos 7 Android tablet

aPad for the world...! Archos 7 == pretty much identical!

Check out slatedroid on the web - they're making custom firmware for these babies. The archos 7 and the aPad (iWeb, iRobot...) have identical guts (if you get the right one, it's abit russian roulette out there...)

I bought an aPad on eBay for £104 a short while back - 600MHz arm9 + 600MHz DSP - and the same money will buy you a 10.1" device with 1GHz in it now.

This tablet is being actively worked on at slatedroid so if you're interested in getting it to have better firmware check them out.

Also - my aPad signs me in to google just fine and the market works perfectly. Nice little device, and very very cheap indeed compared to a real iPad.

Don't write this little thing off just yet. There's some wicked homebrew guys working on it.

Ellison wrestles Google to strangle 'unofficial' Java

Good article, illuminating.

I've learnt one hell of a lot from this article (not least about paranoia, thanks mikel).

I used to do work with J2ME and we were considering testing our JVM in house but when we saw how much the TCK licence cost we ran a mile! I ended up knocking up applets to do comparative performance testing in the end.

I had no idea the whole Dalvik platform ran code which was cross-compiled from java bytecode. That's interesting, and I guess tied up to the register-based approach?

I'm going to go look some stuff up now.

Buxom buttocks bolster Beemer bonnet

NSFW!!!

I know the clue was in the title - but you should have included NSFW in there!!

That said, it's one hell of a strategy.

Apple kills browse-and-get-hacked bugs in iOS

OK Mr Vomit...

If you're sick of it, cut yourself off from it.

Seriously, impotent anger will kill you.

Form a company which tells people how to buy non-apple products, and tell them how to use those products (seeing as most of the imbeciles you're ranting at seem to like apple products because they don't need any smarts to use them).

Turn off all apple adverts you see on TV. Develop a plugin for web browsers which filters out apple banners.

Don't read any articles (including this one) which mention apple products.

Spend your time evangelising to your friends about good product which isn't apple.

But dont' ever, EVER post to comment boards like this (especially with the tragic swearing). You must be the kind who simply can't accept that 90% of the population will do what they do (for an easy life) and don't have geek enlightenment like you do. So use your enlightment for good and stop screaming like a prophet into the void. It's pointless.

Me? I've got an iphone. I've also got an apad, which I hack Android about on. The reasons I decided to become an imbecile for my phone were simply because I couldn't be arsed with more complex phones (which needed "attention" all the time) anymore (ran S60 / UIQ symbian phones for years).

I know I had something to say about the story... what was it... oh yes.

Updates over the air (especially to devices with batteries) are just another way of creating bricked product. At least if the whole system image is replaced you can be reasonably sure it'll work. Before anyone screams, I'm aware that both will have a potentially low fail rate, but the ADSL+laptop+cable solution added to a fallback bootloader mode at least means you can resurrect things. I'm sure android has that mode, but if you work over the air it's not going to help, is it?

Hands on with RIM's BlackBerry Torch 9800

Hardware build quality...?

That silver paint looks like it'll flake off in a few months. Does this thing feel any more solid than recent blackberries? Hardware quality on these devices has always been a real downer for me.

I've heard the slider feels pretty good, but that OS6 doesn't feel like it gets ahead of the competition anywhere. I think BB are on the way down down down... the others are catching up for enterprise security and already have a "shiny shiny ooo look" head start on UI, etc.

The need to use the back key over and over again just goes to show they haven't learned yet.

First SMS Trojan for Android is in the wild

doesn't matter how stupid the users are...

... if the platform designers are stupid enough not to take account of it.

God almightly, we've been down the "are you sure you want to do this? It's unsafe...." route a million times, and still nobody has learned. Android'll end up riddled with malware unless they close app access to code vetted apps from the app store only.

The ability to install APKs from untrusted sources is the reason this malware exists. Ergo, get rid of that feature NOW.

Skype gets ready to float

This explains several things beautifully.

1. Cutting off Fring and making vague statements as to why

2. Nimbuzz service becoming patchier and patchier with logon issues

3. Recent questionnaires whose composition was roughtly 10% about existing Skype product offerings and then 80% about how they could persuade you to part with cash through a mobile service offering

Skype, you're becoming a proper company - pissing off a crapload of people and employing accountants. Expect lots of people to abandon you in droves! I'd guess they'll start making free skype to skype calls harder in the near future when their business model shows how utterly untenable it is...

Emmerdale shoves jam rags in innocent kiddies' faces

Ay oop

Who writes on chalkboards any more? Surely they're so frickin tech savvy in the woolpack now they're all making notes about the jam rags on their iPads?

It's the lack of _reality_ I really find offensive. I mean, honestly, it's supposed to be a soap, reflective of the real world, where real aircraft crash into small villages and wipe out half the population because things are getting boring and nobody's watching... <grumbles>

Flying car gets helpful road-kit weight exemption from feds

translate....?

Hmmm. I've got a reasonably proper education behind me, but it doesn't include any latin.

However, even I know that

terra != terror

Bit feeble that one.

Apple reels as Steve Jobs Flashturbates

Poor debating skills.

"That ended in January 2010, when Wired reported that Jobs slammed Adobe's player for being buggy, and for its publisher's laziness — presumably for not being as inventive or creative as he."

Presumably.

It is actually possible to criticise someone and not be harping on about your own greatness you know. Speaking of laziness, this is lazy journalism. Then again, El Reg wouldn't be El Reg without white flecks at the corners of both Apple fans and "enraged open source loving geeks" as they click all over the website bringing in those lovely click numbers...

shame on you Reg.

Apple lifts iPhone code ban (for chosen few)

Killer app? Oh yeah, I remember that myth...

Dear god, is there still anyone peddling that claptrap (albeit as part of a different argument)?

When 3G came along everybody kept trying to work out what the "killer app" was for the bandwidth. Mobile networks formed (and are still forming) crap alliances trying to find it: handset manufacturers put more and more shoddy crammed in features trying to define it: all failed pretty dismally really.

Ultimately the killer app for all that bandwidth turned out to be form factor and usability - finally getting handhelds together with a good working set of UI interactions, and the speed of processor with battery life which allowed 3G to be useful.

This "killer app" discussion is no better. There is no killer app, only killer devices. And it would appear that Apple have one...

All this sounds like so much geek frothing at the mouth, as usual.

Steve Jobs fears Nation of Bloggers

Charming...

"It must be a very rarefied environment most commentards on this site inhabit, that they'll swallow the idea that newspapers are teetering on the brink of extinction. "

Two things:

1. Don't use terms like "commentard" - apart from the fact that it's perilously close to l33t-crossover portmanteau drivel, you're actually insulting people there.

2. Dont be such a high and mighty idiot.

Although there were one or two comments on here suggesting that "print is dead", there were also one or two rather wordy but well thought out analyses which reasoned that hard copy print journalism is on the way out (within 50 years?).

If the kindle/iPad/WebOS(HP to be)/Android/Windows7(yeah right) tablet revolution really does take off, then:

1. It would seem a good idea for existing media organisations to engage with the technology in a way which makes them revenue so they can continue to provide some form of edited journalism - even if it is to perpetuate their own political standpoints

2. It would also seem a good idea for the producers of those tablet devices to ensure that they have a USP, and aren't just "blog browsing machines" - and being able to read, in a degree of comfort, the newspaper you used to get in hard copy would seem a good USP to me.

Although the disposable and low-cost nature of print is a definite plus, it's a pain in the arse distributing it: over time (and we are talking 50+ years here, well after I plan to be dead) media organisations will push versions of their output into electronic devices for the 22p a time we're paying now for chip wrappers to be.

How newsprint dies out I'm not sure. Critical mass of reading devices would be required. I'd guess that "cut down" versions for smartphones would probably be included (so get the "broadsheet" on an iPad, and the "mini" version on an iPhone, say, to use today's tech) - analagous to the transition which some broadsheet publications made recently to smaller formats.

Mozilla sidesteps iPhone code ban with Firefox Home

Blimey. A Cade Metz story...

Without the word "fanboi" in it about a bazillion times. Well done matey!

Google blames developers for lousy Android battery life

Good article.

Well written, not too complex, points things out without restating too much. Glad to see some balanced discussion about battery life instead of the usual divots moaning and complaining and suggesting "turn it off then on again" or "force quit everything"... at last, some reality checks.

Facebook gives users' names to advertisers

well, he was only 19, but still...

The "dumb f***s" incident was when he was still at college, but I reckon it's got to be a window into his mindset on this stuff. Age will only have spread a layer of gloss on his basic instincts...

Apple promises fanbois iPad WiFi fix

Fanbois

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An extract from "what i did in the school holidays" by Cade

Nokia's lost weekend ends with N8?

Symbian / S60 - don't confuse these

For those who froth about "Symbian" -

Don't call Symbian a pile of crap - it isn't. It's an extremely battery efficient OS with one hell of a solid kernel, case-hardened from years of dev and tweaking since the Psion organiser days.

S60, on the other hand, is a Nokia UI layer which bites butt, and always has, even before touchscreens came along properly. I used to use UIQ symbian phones from SE, which were always one hell of a lot easier to use that the S60 keypress nightmare machines.

I'll be interested to see if the Qt APIs Nokia are pushing make application creation any easier. One of the things which did get on my nerves working in Symbian was the programming conventions required (esp if you change environments a lot like I was).

iPhone 4.0 SDK bars un-Jobsian code translation

@J3

Good post dude, well reasoned and an extension of the paranoia which I see in frothing posts from jailbroken geeks wrt apple api lockdowns. I'm a programmer who has been in mobile phone testing for years (now in tetra radios) and I've had a smartphone since the p910i came out. Got an iPhone precisely because it IS dumbed down.

I'd rationalised my experiences of working for mobile phone manufacturers and decided they'd never really get their act together so opted for a new entrant, and I've always liked apple gear. I like the iPhone.

Now, I'm thinking your theory on "appliances" is a ether salient point; while OS4.0 promises some nice features, the advertising engine makes my flesh crawl. But there's nothing I can do about it.

So I'm thinking you may be right.

Lower termination rates will bring pricey data

what they paid DOES enter into the equation...

... wether you want it to or not is irrelevant. I was frankly disgusted by the bidding war which went on, and we can discuss what it's done to the "digital dividend", etc 'till the cows come home (HMG got utterly greedy didn't it? And look! There are consequences! Who'da thunk it?), but this doesn't alter the fact that these companies will seek to ensure their public balance sheets continue to show revenue consistent with growth compared to the previous quarter.

Normally I'm a proponent of the EU but in this case I think they stuck their noses in, rocked the boat and will actually make the whole lot worse for most of us, apart from those who are on PAYG and "only put a tenner on every 6 months because why bother with anything else...." lazy bastards, get a landline, you've just meant that the era of (conceptually) unlimited wireless data will come to an end...

Pissing and moaning (anonymously) that "the mobile operators are to blame" is to bury your head in a leftist sandpit. They don't care. They want to make money.

We should (once again) shout at the utterly incompentent governmental system we have (the tories would do the same with RF spectrum, it's called "getting the best deal for the taxpayer" most of the time and usually also forgets to think things through properly), and the EU for clearly either omitting or ignoring the existing setup and the ramifications of pissing about with termination charges.