Posts by Jon B

British fixed broadband is cheap … and, er, fairly nasty – global survey

5G replacing fixed line

We already have 4G replacing fixed line broadband in New Zealand. Anyone who doesn't need unlimited being persuaded away from VDSL and even fibre onto 4G fixed line by the biggest telco there.

The UK isn't ditching Boeing defence kit any time soon

Re: nowhere else to go and buy defence aircraft rather than Boeing

Was that a dare to be the first person to get that word into Hansards?

"The A400M is a complete, absolute wanking disaster, "

How Apple is taming the ad biz. Just don't expect Google or Zuck to follow

Apple wants it's cut

Looks like Apple is annoyed it is missing out on all the advertising dollars and laying the groundwork for getting it's fair share. Just like the App Store, soon will need to pay Apple a healthy chunk to be allowed to serve ads on iOS.

We don't need another hero: Huawei overtakes Apple – even without a big-hitter

Phone recommendation

Xiaomi Redmi 4X Pro..

Stealth, lightweight Android breaks cover

Re: "Android Oreo 7.0 "

And only gets excited for Android when it's a Huawei..

nbn™ adds premises to FTTC, HFC, slims down FTTN build

Why so hung about speed tiers

@Matthew42 We have speed tiers in NZ UFB, and it hasn't seemed to have damaged the system in the way you describe. I'm on 50/10, previously on 100/20 and those who want it can get 1000/500 for not a huge increase in the wholesale price from Chorus. Network build is chugging along nicely.

Following flat financials, Telstra pins hopes on NBN renegotiation

Re: A wireless future?

That is already the reality in NZ, even with our flashy FTTP infrastructure. The two big telcos really pushing fixed wireless for lower usage customers.

Brit firms warned over hidden costs of wiping data squeaky clean before privacy rules hit

Re: GDPR brokers ...

Is it fines only or compensation also?

Microsoft does something unusual in Australia: Names the bit barn hosting Azure

Need a geography lesson

Microsoft need a geography lesson if Canberra is now Australia Central.

What sort of silicon brain do you need for artificial intelligence?

Re: Flower bulbs?

Why was he feeding flower bulbs to birds visiting his bird feeder? What kind of sick mind plays those kinds of tricks on our innocent avian friends.

Edit - beaten to it by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Huawei reckons it can strong ARM its way into AI world with new chips

The Fourth Phase?

I assume the fourth phase is 'Replace Me'

Disneyland to become wretched hive of scum and villainy

Re: And here I thought ...

Mar a Lago

Openreach asks UK what it thinks about 10 million 'full fibre' connections

My parents, in a small North Wales village were connected to FTTP recently, after being on the end of a 5km ADSL line previously. It's great when I visited, and set them up so their phones were actually using it. Was built using funding from the EU though, so good luck for any other similar villages..

Nokia inks wide-ranging deal with Xiaomi: Not just IP and handsets

Hopefully that clears a few patent potholes

I know Xiaomi were prevented from marketing and selling their phones in most Western markets under the threat of severe patent litigation from one incumbant or another. My last few phones have all been Xiaomi direct from China and they are great, the Redmi 4X Pro is seriously the best bang for buck phone out there right now.

'My dream job at Oracle left me homeless!' – A techie's relocation horror tale

Re: Surely Oracle could have found him somewhere to live

Upvote from New Zealand

In touching tribute to Samsung Note 7, fidget spinners burst in flames

Re: Hmmm

If there is enough water and not much lithium it should do the trick eventually..

'Clearance sale' shows Apple's iPad is over. It's done

Re: Phones are now big enough

Basic things like displaying the on screen keyboard having a five second lag, and safari being a crashing mess too. iPad2 still good for casual gaming, that's about it.

MIT goes down to the wire: Brain cable pipes electricity, chemicals, light straight into minds

There's some cruel buggers out there

If it was anywhere except a research lab they'd be charged with animal cruelty. Sounds like they just enjoy this, and tag on some potential human benefit at some vague point in the future to justify it.

TV anchor says live on-air 'Alexa, order me a dollhouse' – guess what happens next

It still wouldn't past the toddler test

Anybody who watched Blake's 7 knows that voice activated computers ought to

1) Confirm their activation word with a chime or a very irascible "yes?"

2) Ask "Confirm?" after being given an order.

Given that an 80's TV sci-fi scriptwriter can get it right, it's a little sad that Google, Amazon et al. can't quite manage to get there.

To which said toddler replies 'yes'

If only our British 4G were as good as, um, Albania's... UK.gov's telco tech report

Load of rubbish

Measuring coverage by landmass instead of population percentage makes that report is a load of rubbish - it has NZ even worse than UK, when it has nationwide 4G coverage, and according to Akamai some of the fastest mobile data speeds. Band 28 (700mhz) rolled out near nationally for less urban areas, and the globally popular 1800 and 2100 bands in urban areas.

There's gold in them thar hills! Rackspace latest firm to join Frankfurt data centre rush

Re: Re:Why isn't this coming to the uk?

The Frankfurt data centre is probably direct Post Brexit investment as they'd likely need a mainland Europe base to comply with data protection laws etc.

Microsoft’s ‘Home Hub’ probably isn’t even hardware at all

Cortana Steller Voice recognition?

I find Cortana pretty cruddy compared to googles voice recognition, specifically the ability to convert what you are saying into recognisable sentences, whereas Cortana likes sticking in random words that don't make sense in the overall context of the sentence.

USS Zumwalt gets Panama tug job after yet another breakdown

Radar Reflectors

Surely they should leave the radar reflectors on at all times in peacetime - otherwise would it not be relatively for an enemy easy to scan and save the stealthy radar profile to use in time of war?

Vodafone Australia promises fixed-line broadband over NBN

Why not Fixed Line Wireless

Vodafone NZ and Spark both offer fixed line wireless plans - can't Vodafone do the same in Aus to bypass NBN for some users?

New Zealand carrier says Cu later, copper: we're giving customers a glassing instead

Re: Ahead of Australia on fibre tech

The wholesale price of 100/20 fibre is only a couple of dollars extra a month than the 30/10 basic offering - so the ISPs can market faster speed for pretty much the same price. The wholesale price only really jumps up by 20-30 dollars a month for the 200/200 plans or 1000/500 plans.

Chinese electronics biz recalls webcams at heart of botnet DDoS woes

Re: How are these devices accessed from the internet though?

Commentards like this one is why the El Reg is so good.

HomeKit is where the dearth is – no one wants Apple's IoT tech

Re: Interesting but not borne out by experience of user wants

Adding HomeKit installation seems like a short cut to commoditising your product.

NBN HFC scaled down to stave off financial disaster

Meanwhile in NZ

1000/500 service going live next month in most centres for $120 a month (NZ$ or AU$, pretty much at parity) and the FTTP rollout finished in a couple of years. That was after FTTN was completed back in 2008, so lots can have VDSL while they are waiting.

The survivors: Intel's Apollo Lake netbook CPUs stagger from Goldmont bloodbath

Re: Why name them Celeron?

Agree Centrino would be a better name. I always associate Celeron with cruddy cheapo systems.

Thieves can wirelessly unlock up to 100 million Volkswagens, each at the press of a button

Re: I have an A5

Be careul, you're beginning to sound like a typical self-entitled Audi driver

Italian MP threatens parents forcing veggie diets on kids with jail

Re: Italian veggy

That pizza photo was cruelly delicious looking. As a non-Italian vegetarian I didn't even notice the salami.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is borking boxen everywhere

Re: It aint just this upgrade

At least it's not just me that happens to then..

Twitter: $602m into -$107m

Re: The best thing about Twitter...

Still amazed that revenue is as high as $602m. And how do they mange to spend that much money, with so few staff, to manage to make a loss?

Microsoft Azure doubles up to $800m a quarter – and is wiped out by dying phone sales

Re: The writing should be on the wall

The have all but pulled the plug already

Trans-Pacific FASTER fibre fires first photons, finally

was wondering why it wasn't landing in Hawaii

then saw the map of the cable - it brushes the Aleutian Islands to get the shortest fastest route.

ZTE flagship elbows aside Xiaomi

Re: No joy for O2 users

UK's fault for having such obscure 4G bands (everyone apart from EE at least)

SELECT features FROM bumf... What's new in MS SQL Server 2016

As long as the icon looks pretty

SQL Server 2014 icon looks terrible in Windows 8.1 - 32x32 pixels scaled up to 2cm across

A UK-wide fibre broadband investment plan? Don't ask awkward questions

Can have both FTTP and 4G home broadband

Here in NZ we are in middle of the FTTP rollout, which seems to be progressing as well as it can be.

Also excellent 4G coverage, including 700mhz for more rural areas, and we are starting to see the first offerings from the mobile companies for fixed home wireless broadband. Costs about 40quid for 80GB, it won't ever be unlimited though, which you can get for about same price on adsl, vdsl (FTTC already completed 5yrs ago) or fibre.

Windows 10 build 14342: No more friendly Wi-Fi sharing

Wi-fi Sense needs your attention

Had so many prompts that wi-fi sense needs my attention. Not any longer then.

Woman scales Ben Nevis wielding selfie stick instead of ice axe

Re: Fly down

"Sadly my knees are shot now - I can go up OK, but coming down became agony"

Buy a paraglider.

Verizon only cares about fiber, lets copper nets lapse into ruin – gripes

Re: Bah!

My GPON fibre terminal consumes a bit of electricity at my place, is not too bad a deal.

Sell the NBN not long after rollout ends says Infrastructure Australia

Re: MTM: the Road to Nowhere. Waste on a truly grand scale.

Wow, what a cock up. I thought the whole FTTN build was planned with this knowledge to upgrade to GPON in the future without a full re-build.

Compared to the train wreck that is Australias's NBN, The NZ UFB project is a model of efficiency and managed costs. Written on my 100/20 fibre to the home connection.

Is this the last ever Lumia?

Worse hardware than a 2yr old 735

Well done Microsoft for another nail in the Windows Phone coffin.

My two year old Lumia 735, bought for less money than the launch price of the 650, has superior specifications in every regard.

This is a budget phone in budget hardware for mid-range phone price.

Japanese boffins fire up 100Gbps wireless broadband connection

Access Point in every room

Most people shudder at installing structured cabling in their homes, but that seems to be the requirement for these future wifi technologies. Not too hard in a lot of houses to install multiple APs from the ceiling space.

Google to pump free gigabit Fiber into homes of hard-up families

unless you live in Wales.

Uber Australia is broke: 'We don't pay tax because we don't generate revenue'

I thought it was the US senate, referring to an example of Uber tax dodging in Australia.

Sprint sprints away from no-throttle policy – punishes 'unlimited' network hoggers

Seems sensible

From a networking technology position it is sensible - wireless is heaviliy effected by contention and more congested it is, from maybe just a few users on your cell tower, the worse the experience is for everyone.

That's what happens when marketing triumphs over engineers, and then have to weasel their way out of it. Meanwhile in New Zealand we're fairly content with ~3GB data limits per month and world leading 3G and 4G speeds.

Netflix in Australia slower than Mexico, Chile or New Zealand

New Zealand not an economic peer?

If New Zealand is not an economic peer, does that mean it is more developed than Australia?

Testing CarPlay with Apple’s most expensive ever accessory

Looks just like a phone stuck to the dashboard

The photo of the Ferrari cabin with the console looks pretty rubbish. Would you not get the same effect just sticking the iphone there with blu-tack, and bluetooth the sound to the car speakers?