Posts by Rob W

BBC begins fresh Freeview HD TV trial

@ Hywel Thomas

Really?! That would mean EVERY household would have to have a satellite dish. There are many places in which this would be entirely unsuitable. I, for instance, live in a beautiful stone-built Victorian terrace and it would look AWFUL slapped on the side of my house. Fine for the council estates, where quite frankly it would be difficult to make it look any uglier...

Also, while Freeview boxes are available for £25, the minimum you can pay to get a Freesat box (and dish and installation) is £130. I can't afford that sort of outlay, just for the sake of HD, so I can't imagine a full-scale roll-out would be possible.

AVG disguises fake traffic as IE6

@Martin Owens

I've already started putting up warning banners for IE6 users, explaining that they're using a defunct web browser and that they should probably try Firefox (or even just IE7?!). That was before this whole LinkScanner bullshit.

Now I'm going to have to possibly put in a redirect page for IE6 users. Something along the lines of "The browser you're using is not only defunct, it is being spoofed by antivirus software" and a link to the real page.

AVG are worse than the British government for their proactive 'make like harder to make it safer' idiocy.

Tux, because it's the closest El Reg gives us to the utopian world of OS X. Viruses, on a computer?! What's wrong with you man!?!

Heaviest Virgin Media downloaders face new daytime go-slow

Re: Virgin ruined a good service

@Andy: That's pretty bad, if you don't get full speed. I have cable (NTLTelewest Business, as it's for my business) and I have NEVER experienced anything less than full speed, let alone bandwidth throttling. I guess that's what I'm paying for though.

'Consumer' broadband always disappointed me; especially ADSL, which often failed to get above 1Mb/s, even though it should've managed 5Mb/s! Plus, BT, with their stinking lies (I should know, I used to work for the f***ers) REFUSED to accept that there was a problem with the line. This, even though I had access to the same testing systems, which always showed a significant voltage offset.

I really think that anyone complaining about cable doesn't know how lucky they are. Even on my heaviest downloading days, I don't get anywhere near the limits listed here, and I consider myself to be a heavy user.

O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'

I must be a 'muppet'...

I moved away from O2 years ago, realising that I must not be part of their target audience (i.e. a muppet - in fact, Animal, I think...)

Seriously, what a bunch of idiots! Not that any other PR people are better. They're all arses!

And as for who to move to... Yes, 3 is ideal for all of us 'techie nerds'. They provide so much extra functionality that O2 deem isn't worth it. AND they're cheaper.

I hope those particular idiots lose their jobs over this.

BT to drag T-Mobile onto 21st Century

BT will always be BT

Dave, you're not quite right about the telecoms indsutry in the UK. BT no longer have a monolopy and OFCOM is making damn sure that they can in now way HAVE a monolopy.

As the infrastructure part of BT has been separated out, the retail and wholesale parts of the company now have just as little access to engineers etc as other suppliers.

You are, however, right about them being useless f***ers. I've had plenty of insight into the workings of BT and it has always shocked me. The issue is that it's a massive corporation and nothing is simple - even if it should be! They will always be the same in business terms, even if they DO progress technologically.

WHY they still use sh!tty copper pairs for ADSL when fibre is so much more efficient is something that forever bugs me. Even with 21CN they have no plans to take fibre further than DPs [distrobution points], which means you'll still have that piece of copper wire serving your home. Pointless.

@Ed - I'm not surprised you have poor coverage in central London. Too many buildings close together! If you knew how much planning is involved just to get one tiny mast erected, you'd thank your lucky stars you have ANY bars in a dump like that...