* Posts by Enger

5 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Feb 2020

Ancient telly borked broadband for entire Welsh village

Enger

DSL is shit.

If OFCOM forced BT and other providers to install real FTTH, this ridiculous nonsense wouldn't occur.

And double indictment for taking 18-months to get an engineer out there with spectrum monitoring equipment. (The cable replacement program should have been Fiber all the way to the home. OFCOM suffers regulatory capture, just like the US FCC.)

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

Enger

1) Given much of the world's silicon comes from the Asian rim (outside of stringent oversight), how do we stop the silicon from being modified? It IS possible to strip-down and examine silicon with microscopes and miniature probes, but that is very time consuming. And if only a sub-set of silicon foundry output is "modified", repeated spot-checking of silicon with microscopes and probes could be very very labor intensive (and expensive).

2) While no one is delighted with the prospect of having Chinese (or Russian or any) security service crawling up our ass, given the revelations of Snowden and others, foreign intelligence services would need so share space with the NSA (and 5-eyes partners), which are already way way up our ass, monitoring every aspect of our lives. (On the bright side: no need to submit to a colonoscopy any more - your doctor can order a set of pictures from the NSA.)

Want to see through walls? Electroboffins build tiny chip in the lab that vibrates at just the right frequency to do it

Enger

The exterior walls of many homes contain foil-backed fiberglass insulation. Perhaps the metal foil will shield the home somewhat? (Many low-E windows also contain a membrane which may attenuate certain wavelengths?) It would be interesting to hear some legitimate test results about this.

ISP Monkeybrains cries foul over coronavirus fees after requesting more bandwidth. Zayo says it was all a mistake

Enger

The article states, "Monkeybrains had requested an increase for the circuit's bandwidth, as part of normal operational growth, four months ago and never got a response."

That aspect of the interaction was not further discussed in the article.

Does Zayo admit dropping the ball on the original upgrade request?

One might think that the 4-month failure to respond would itself avoid any need to pay expedite charges.

(Heck, one might argue that Zayo should pay the customer a penalty fee for dropping the ball.)

Brits may still be struck by Lightning, but EU lawmakers vote for bloc-wide common charging rules

Enger

MORE to it than just the type of connector

Standardizing the connector is not sufficient to make chargers universal.

Power negotiation protocol must be standardized. AND

Power output capacity must be standardized.

(Or at least a minimum power output level must be established, and that minimum should be realistic for modern-day smart phones that provide fast recharging times!)

USB-PD (Power Delivery) may be a reasonable standard to adopt. It is currently at version 3.0

But even that has options, and extensions. AND, the extensions are currently in use (by some high profile smart phones).

The high-end Samsung charger uses the PPS (Programmable Power Supply) extension to PD. It delivers 45watts to the phone, using a custom voltage.

AND, its output current is high enough it should require the 5A-capable power cord (another extension to the USB-PD standard).

[See https://www.gsmarena.com/dont_just_buy_any_45w_pd_charger_for_the_samsung_galaxy_note10-news-38837.php ]

To accommodate all of today's phones (allowing a single charger to optimally charge all phones), we'd need (at least) a 45W USB-PD PPS with 5A cable.

Historically that might be expensive. But all the power supply manufacturers are now touting their new GaN (Gallium Nitride) based electronics. GaN is cited as enabling smaller physical size of the charger while also providing enhanced efficiency and reliability. AND, they cost less than previous designs.

[See https://epc-co.com/epc/GalliumNitride/WhatisGaN.aspx]

[See https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/11/11/20959970/hyperjuice-hyper-100w-gan-wall-charger-gallium-nitride-kickstarter-preorder-usb-c-usb-a ]

So, maybe it _IS_ economically defensible for the EU to mandate a 45w USB-PD PPS 5A standard.

That covers all the phones we know about. TODAY.

How to we prepare for advances in battery technology?

It hasn't always been Li Ion. It used to be NiMH, and NiCad before that. One possible future is Lithium Sulphur.

Researchers in Australia have announced enhancements to Lithium Sulphur battery design that may open the door to higher capacity phone batteries.

[See https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/supercharging-tomorrow-australia-first-to-test-new-lithium-batteries ]

[See https://www.eetimes.com/a-new-lithium-sulfur-battery-with-an-ultra-high-capacity/ ]

To allow higher capacity batteries to be recharged in a timely manner, perhaps the EU standard should mandate that all chargers support the highest level of USB-PD "Power Rule", allowing 100W to be supplied (at 20v and 5A). This would provide some room for growth in the smart phone charging system, and ALSO allow the same charger to be used to power OTHER devices (tablet and notebook computers and even some laptops). THAT could be a really universal charger.