Posts by Graham 25 148 posts • joined 19 Jun 2009
"BT's relationship with the embattled Chinese firm dates back to 2005, when the formerly state-owned telco selected Huawei as a "preferred supplier" for its 21CN fixed-line network."
In those days most of the Huawei kit was actually Marconi kit, made and designed in the UK, Italy and Germany and was low risk. So BT actually bought Marconi kit at prices which were lower than the Marconi cost because Huawei wanted to buy itself into the UK network.
GSM-R was/is only made by two suppliers - Siemens and Ericsson. the rest quite rightly concluded it was commercially non-viable and a waste of development time.
To be fair, Railtrack did ask the UK operators to quote for it to be installed on WCML but they all declined as the cost was too high and Railtrack only wanted to pay 'on use' and as the operators could generate more revenues on Oxford Street in a day that the WCML would generate in a year, it was a complete non-starter. I know this as I was there.
The main reason why its a problem is the nice, metal laminated windows on the trains and the lack of available inter-carriage connections. You might stick an aerial on one carriage but you cannot route RF through the carriages on the inside very easily, so you're stuck with putting aerials on the top of the train right next to the second biggest source of RF interference where the power lines run parallel with the train.
And as GSM-R is a safety critical system, theres no way anyone on the safety side is going to allow the two infrastructures to join up.
GSM-R was certainly only built for 3G at best on WCML as the good old whining public didnt want to pay for Railtrack to straighten out the curves and lift the track to ground level to speed up journeys and as a result make it better RF coverage from existing towers.
With an elderly father in a COVID ward for a couple of months, the only communications with him have been via the conveniently placed bedside phone with an 0872 number - effectively a premium rate number.....
Two months later, two £300 bills run up by an elderly mother speaking to her husband of almost 60 years is simply a joke. eeven a local Birmingham number would be fine.
Someones getting rich and its the phone provider in the NHS wards .....
Its also known for having pretty much every tree in the continent have a barrel of oil of one type or another inside each tree.
Its probably fair to say that there is nowhere else on earth where every tree explodes with oil driven flames when it catches fire.
If it was cheaper, you think Openreach wouldnt do it ?
Fibre itself may be cheaper but its also m ore difficult to install and I would guess that a lot of the cable you think should be replaced is very old, direct buried copper cable - which would need to be replaced by a whole new lot of ductwork before you even think about putting fibre in.
Occams Razor - the reason they aren't putting in fibre, is that its not actually cheaper.
They lost a lot of training vehicles when the different types of aircraft requiring training were taken out of service. So no more training aircraft for Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado, Nimrod to name a few so you would expect a reduction is aircraft to train.
ts also worth mentioning that the Contractor cannot go out and buy more actual military aircraft if it wants more - that has to come from HMG.
Personally i would be highly suspicious of the claim of over 200 training aircraft. Thats bigger than the front line command.
The way globalisation is set up ?
Nobody sets up globalisation. It is the natural state of play that as economies develop, they cast off the lower value creation to lower cost economies for them to develop, while the mature economies develop higher value add capabilities. There's nobody setting these things - its a natural feature.
Developed economies dont want to make small plastic widgets because they cannot afford to pay a developed economy salary to a worked producing $0.01 items.
Trump has it right on getting China to respect IPR and to stop companies being forced to work with Chinese thieves, sorry, partners.
On everything esle he is 100% wrong.
Because the majority of people don't want devices to be easily serviceable with easy to replace parts as those issues are not a factor in their purchase.
They wants small, light, long life and if the compromise is that its a single unmaintainable slab, then people are in general, happy with that.
Unfortunately, there are many out there who recall the 'Time Capsule Tombstone' problem which affected tens of thousands of TC's consigning them to early death when a component burned itself out on the motherboard and left the device a complete brick. The failure could be predicted down to a specific week or so of life.
If anything the TC is Apples best example of nice idea, poorly implemented and hardly 'it just works' =and more like "it works and then packs up in an entirely predictable manner and there was nothing that could be done'"
One could still legitimately argue that even though the US says its companies have an obligation to hand over things held overseas, that obligation ends at the border of the US and once the data is overseas the law does not apply.
Its like giving yourself the right to vote in a foreign country because the US says you can. It means squat overseas and the companies can just take the view that they have no right to do anything overseas as the law stated doesnt apply outside of the US.
I look forward to the EU demanding a US company hands over Trumps accounts as they can compel the auditors of Trumps estate in the USA using a similar trick.
Re : driven by games ......
I worked for a large British defence contractor in the 90's (yes I am that old) and the company spent years developing its hardware and software for a airport simulator whereby you walked into a small room on a stand and there were four of five huge projected TV screens around you each with a simulation of the view from a airport control tower. You could see ground vehicle movements, aircraft landing and taking off and it was designed to train ATC staff in operating an airport.
All highly impressive for its time. I then saw the same setup in an exhibition a year later and it all looked the same except the large rack of equipment was gone, and under the displays in a cupboard were a few computers each with a pair Voodoo (2?) graphics card in them which had overnight wiped out millions in hardware and software development.
Apparently the company had tried to engage with the Voodoo manufacturer to get the software rewritten but they werent interested, so they gave it to a couple of game-obsessed technicians from the apprentice scheme to rewrote the entire system to use the new graphics cards in a few months. I recall Purchasing trying to negotiate with the Voodoo supplier who were not bothered in the slightest about ISO this and that and UK MOD commercial terms - just 'how many cards do you want mate and we will dispatch them tomorrow', and send us a cheque first.
I have never seen such a good example of the games community taking over and going past the commercial companies in my life.
Out of interest, what could France do if a US company, which is hosted in the US and used by millions of French citizens decides to give the French government the finger ?
Its not going to bock WhatsApp as its citizens would throw a wobbly, so what could France actually do except go to court and a US corporation could ignore them as the company is not based or hosted in France ?
Always wondered ....
The guy should turn up with a couple of friendly policemen in tow and the minute he is refused access, the police should arrest and handcuff anyone who stops the guy.
Start with the security oik and when he says he has been told to do it, go arrest the person who issued the instruction. Cart them off to a holding cell and remind them that if they repeat it, then they will be arrested again.
Proceed ad finitum until the cops run out of handcuffs and the organisation gets the hnt.
" Airbus, Thales, Alcatel-Lucent, Ubisoft, Alstom, Dx0 Labs"
I think you'll find a lot of the profitable bits of those companies are outside of France and much of them came from UK companies which the French bought. Thales for example makes good profits in the UK but the French side are basket cases. they keep the Uk bits to fund French pensions. Airbus is great in Germany and the UK - but in France - Non. Alstom is mostly ex-GEC heavy industry businesses from the UK apart from its Nuclear business and rolling stock businesses. Alcatel Lucent is more Lucent than Alcatel, and Ubisoft - well, nobody goes to France to write software do they ?
Lets put it this way - sicen the Rocket car Challenge hit schools, takeup of STEM subjects has rocketed and is an unqualified success.
In the 60's the Apollo programme drove takeup.
70's and early 80's it was the Space Shuttle.
Since then, nothing. Just a decline as kids had nothing to inspire them.
Bloodhound has turned that around.
Sorry, but most of your post while well intentioned is ignorant BS. If you truly are 'horrified' then you really are a snowflake.
Indeed. This has always been the problem with people who use Amazon and complain that Amazon doesn't pay much.
So they sit at home, and go online to a foreign website, owned by a foreign company, and order stuff which is mostly made overseas, which is paid for on a credit card held by a foreign bank most likely, and the goods are shipped from overseas to the customer (via a UK distribution warehouse).
Squeeze too much and the warehouse shuts down, the people lose their jobs and the Royal Mail/DHL or whomever gets to deliver a parcel from an overseas warehouse. Slight increase in shipping costs to the consumer - massive loss of jobs in the UK.
"European countries are furious that under the current rules, digital companies are only taxed on profits"
I thought that all companies are taxed on profits, via Corporation Tax.
What is the EU going to do if Google, Facebook and others go entirely offshore - block the most popular parts of the Internet ?
"the bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after"
Yes, some of us with longer memories remember thats what you got asking the Uk workers to deliver.
People should not assume that if its delivered from the UK, that it will be of a better quality. The only thing you can be certain about is that it will cost more and there will be more industrial action.
Yes, that train makes a difference. Windows are tinted slightly using a metallic layer in the middle of the laminated glass, and that metal acts as a Faraday barrier. It depends entirely upon the glass and the train makers choices. Its a well known issue in the rail industry and just one of many reasons which high speed data will not be available on the deep tube sections of London Underground.
Its not an excuse.
You may understand IT but try understanding the laws of physics and radio propagation. Higher frequencies = faster fall off of signal so overlapping cell sites at 2G have gaps in 3G in rural area, and the gaps get bigger and bigger for 4G and for 5G.
The rest of the rant is irrelevant. Go read a physics book.
The problem with the UK is that because we were early users of 2G, the majority of cell sites were put in place to suit GSM coverage and as we move to 3G, 4g and 5G, the cells will be much smaller and more towers will be needed - a LOT of towers.
Try telling Joe Public that if they want 4G or even 5G they will have to have a lot more cell towers near them and they will throw a wobbly and will try and ignore the laws of physics.
Developing countries never had a 2G network in rural areas at all, and so when they get 4G, the cell towers are in the right place.
Its a acse of the laws of physics versus the British mentality to expect coverage without towers and of course, never to actually pat for the 10,000 towers needs to give some sheep coverage in a Scottish valley with a road going through it.
"The sooner Openreach are forced into a separate holding company (and Oi! Ofcom! Don't forget the razor wire ringfence!) the better."
So you're one of those people who think that Openreach being a separate company will mean the laws of economics will no longer apply and will be able to borrow money as cheaply as BT ? If its uneconomical to provide a service to which you clearly feel entitled now, what makes you think a new supplier with less money will be able to make 1+1=3 ?
Let me know when the sound of reality crashing down on you becomes too much to bear.
Well its not as if the Aramco Cyber team in Dammam got stuck in a fight between IT and Corporate Security on who the team should report to - to IT to hide their incompetence or to Corporate Security to sack the corporate IT folks who fought against the recovery programme as to do otherwise would imply it was their fault in the first place is it ?
Its not as if the locals plug in USB sticks all the time is it ?
Spot one - too many halfwits think that having Openreach as an independent body will suddenly mean it will fibre the entire country and defy the laws of economics and put in £100,000 of cables, dig up miles of roads to serve a dozen homes who only want to pay £7 a month for it.
On its own, Openreach will have even less financial clout and won't be able to borrow much to invest because it will be seen as being easily dominated by Ofcom.
Spot on - the same half-wits who do not understand what 'up to' means are the same people who think that switching between ISPs who use the exact same final connection will give them a better speed.
FWIW my parents two next door neighbours get 7Mb connections on ADSL, and my father gets 2.4Mbit despite bing on the same cable, and we have tweaked, adjusted, playe with the terminating equipment with the ISP.
Bad copper is just bad copper.
Maybe the laws of physics and more importantly, an education in economics would help ?
Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds putting fibre into locations with no return.
Actually, a dictionary definition of 'uneconomic' might be helpful as well.
"But the Good Sinking Ship Cameron is willing to spend more than £50bn on a train set that will never be profitable."
It may not in itself be profitable, but in terms of economic value by taking thousands of car journeys off the road etc, it will yield a benefit.
No modern railway upgrade has ever turned out to be a white elephant - they all get full up and not to slowly either. I understand why affected people dont like it, and why lefties think they can ignore the problem and give the money away to the homeless, but it will get filled up, it will be popular and after a few short years, people will wonder how on earth we ever managed with out iy.
"Just "increasing competition" is not going to make the final 5% any easier to reach."
Spot on.
Too many technologically and economically illiterate folks out there expect £50k investment for their broadband line and expect to only pay £20 a month.
1+1=2 and not any number you may otherwise want.
Because when I order something, I'd like to know that if there is a problem, then shipping it back isn;t a problem.
Quite apart from the concept of buying from a local based organisation (even if a multinational) and keeping local folks in jobs -I bought a Videocamera about 10-12 years ago, when DV tape cameras were the best available, but when it had a problem it cost me a small fortune in shipping and insurance to get it there for repair.
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