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Smart phones; a discussion


Cuban8
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3 hours ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Got told yesterday 3G phones to be phased out this year, would the sim card in my phone work with a 4G phone ?

 

It's the phone, not the sim card.  If your phone is 4G compatible, then you'll be fine.  Vodaphone?  Check the spec on Settings/Network  & internet/Mobile network if you're using an Android phone.

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John, you will probably find that your existing SIM is physically a different size to a modern phone, they are much smaller now. Ask your service provider for a new SIM, when I last changed my my phone it needed a nano SIM and Tesco my service provider sent a card with 3 or 4 different Sims.

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On 21/01/2024 at 19:48, Geoff S said:

 

The last 300 metres of our internet connection is copper anyway.  I switch off the router every night and we don't always get a mobile signal indoors.  I'm quite sure that, at present, BT can't impose internet enabled phones if you refuse it.  Things have come a long way since it was almost impossible to get an exclusive phone line unless you were a business user.  We had a shared line for ages - it was rarely a problem then; it would be now.

 

I think, like Peter Jenkins, we're setting ourselves up for a massive problem. There's an old saying - don't put all your eggs in one basket and that's what we seem to be doing and making ourselves very vulnerable to either malicious or weather related attacks. 

I have the new phone ,I am talking Fibre land line, part of a package , weather I want it or not, it is now Fibre. Bt are installing these now!!!! EVERYBODY, with a LL will have one very soon, its not your choice. By the way I dont like them at all. Sound quality is crap, you have to use the dialing code  input regardless for all local calls.  If the internet goes down we have no TV , internet or phone, you need a mobile to keep contact, even to report a fault or any other subject re your phone.( How odd that you require a moblie in order to keep your land line going ) BT use my mobile to liasse with me on any subject. Where are we going?????

Bas

Edited by Basil
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26 minutes ago, Basil said:

I have the new phone ,I am talking Fibre land line, part of a package , weather I want it or not, it is now Fibre. Bt are installing these now!!!! EVERYBODY, with a LL will have one very soon, its not your choice. By the way I dont like them at all. Sound quality is crap, you have to use the dialing code  input regardless for all local calls.  If the internet goes down we have no TV , internet or phone, you need a mobile to keep contact, even to report a fault or any other subject re your phone.( How odd that you require a moblie in order to keep your land line going ) BT use my mobile to liasse with me on any subject. Where are we going?????

Bas

Its called progress. 🙃 Although I can still call local number without dialing the area code.The worlds turned upside down 🙃

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On 21/01/2024 at 18:05, Peter Jenkins said:

The whole point of a separate land line is that it has its own power and uses a separate run from the electricity wires - at lease out in the shires!  If I lose electrical power, my land line still works.  I have never had both the electricity supply and the land line fail simultaneously although a major storm could do that.  I don't always get good mobile reception in my house so when the electricity goes and I lose my BT Hub, I'm left with trying to cope with an iffy mobile signal.  Thank goodness for my land line is what I say as that's how I report my electricity outage to the supplier.

Dual redundancy is good!

HI Peter, with the new phones, no power no phone. No Internet no phone. Youll all have one soon, thats if you have a LL.
Bas

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1 minute ago, Basil said:

HI Peter, with the new phones, no power no phone. No Internet no phone. Youll all have one soon, thats if you have a LL.
Bas

Thanks Bas.  I just want to know which genius approved this!  At least when you lost your electricity your phone line still worked provided you had an genuine phone plugged into one outlet and not a smart phone.  Let's hope that the mobile mast that I would need to use in an emergency will have its own UPS to give it redundancy. 

 

Anyone know if mobile phone masts have a UPS fitted?

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18 hours ago, Peter Jenkins said:

Thanks Bas.  I just want to know which genius approved this!  At least when you lost your electricity your phone line still worked provided you had an genuine phone plugged into one outlet and not a smart phone.  Let's hope that the mobile mast that I would need to use in an emergency will have its own UPS to give it redundancy. 

 

Anyone know if mobile phone masts have a UPS fitted?

Who are you gonna call?   Their helplines are all down because of a power cut 🤪

 

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Network-discussions/Do-EE-Masts-have-battery-backup/td-p/1122945

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/power-cuts-sussex-london-mobile-phones-burgess-hill-b1067548.html

 

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18 hours ago, Peter Jenkins said:

Thanks Bas.  I just want to know which genius approved this!  At least when you lost your electricity your phone line still worked provided you had an genuine phone plugged into one outlet and not a smart phone.  Let's hope that the mobile mast that I would need to use in an emergency will have its own UPS to give it redundancy. 

 

Anyone know if mobile phone masts have a UPS fitted?

I think they do but only last a short while . The conspiracy theorists would say that its all planned and in the event of  civil unrest all communications apart from battery powered radio sets , could be controlled at the flick of a switch 😟. So perhaps it was a genius who approved it 😉

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1 hour ago, FlyinFlynn said:

I'm thinking of an emergency 999 call. They will definitely have a UPS to keep them going.  No, I think this is yet another ddcision taken by some pillock who hasn't thought about what happens if.....!

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My 405 line TV won't pick up anything either.  Maintaining the POTS has become less and less cost effective as so many have migrated their comms to mobiles and VOIP.  BT is a business, not a public service any more. and this is certainly not news - the closure of the analogue system has been widely publicised and discussed for several years. Things do move on and I believe this is a commercial decision rather than a conspiracy...

 

I believe that vulnerable customers will be offered battery backup solutions and of course, there's no reason why anyone worried enough shouldn't provide backup power or buy a solution from their provider.  The average model flyer should have no shortage of battery storage capacity to hand!

 

More concerning may be how (what I assume are) mains powered broadband distribution cabinets will be affected by widespread power cuts - hopefully there has been some consideration given to maintaining connectivity!

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3 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

More concerning may be how (what I assume are) mains powered broadband distribution cabinets will be affected by widespread power cuts - hopefully there has been some consideration given to maintaining connectivity!

That's precisely my point Martin.  There are a number of weak links in this chain.  Have they covered them?

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I was told by a visiting BT engineer , after I commented about no power no phone, there is a phone available from BT, battery driven , that BT are in a position to supply . However BT have  refused supply one to me. I assume that this is on a cost basis. I dont know what sort of appliance it is. It could be some kind of mobile !!!. I am in an area where power outage happens, due to overloads on overhead supplies. The electric company have me on a list, I am contacted when downtime is known in advance.

Bas

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12 minutes ago, Basil said:

I was told by a visiting BT engineer , after I commented about no power no phone, there is a phone available from BT, battery driven , that BT are in a position to supply . However BT have  refused supply one to me. I assume that this is on a cost basis. I dont know what sort of appliance it is. It could be some kind of mobile !!!. I am in an area where power outage happens, due to overloads on overhead supplies. The electric company have me on a list, I am contacted when downtime is known in advance.

Bas

QED.  Coming to an address, called your own, soon!

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3 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

My 405 line TV won't pick up anything either.  Maintaining the POTS has become less and less cost effective as so many have migrated their comms to mobiles and VOIP.  BT is a business, not a public service any more. and this is certainly not news - the closure of the analogue system has been widely publicised and discussed for several years. Things do move on and I believe this is a commercial decision rather than a conspiracy...

 

I believe that vulnerable customers will be offered battery backup solutions and of course, there's no reason why anyone worried enough shouldn't provide backup power or buy a solution from their provider.  The average model flyer should have no shortage of battery storage capacity to hand!

 

More concerning may be how (what I assume are) mains powered broadband distribution cabinets will be affected by widespread power cuts - hopefully there has been some consideration given to maintaining connectivity!

 

Things do, indeed, move on.  However, often not in a universally beneficial direction.  VHF Band 1 and 3 (BBC and ITV) no longer transmit TV signals (the ones I learned how to repair when I was a teenager, when a lot of receivers only received band1 - 40 to 80 Mhz!). However, Band 2 carries VHF FM broadcasts still, but how long before that ends and we have to rely on very dodgy DAB digital radios?  We have several DAB receivers, and reception isn't always OK and probably unusable as car radios.  Is Radio 2 still on LW 200kHz?  As it broadcasts Test Match Special, it'll probably continue 🙂

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20 hours ago, FlyinFlynn said:

Just like here in Australia, when the mobile towers go down a UPS would be of little help - 500 down in yesterday's storm Yesterday's thunderstorm damage in Victoria, Australia

 

* Chris *

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14 hours ago, Sparks said:

Radio 4 'long wave' moved from 200kHz to 198kHz several years ago to comply with 9kHz channel spacing.

 

You're right, I'd forgotten that. It's Radio 2 btw - the Light Programme when I was fixing valve radios for a living 🙂

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16 hours ago, Robert Cracknell said:

You're lucky Ron. I live at sea level on the NE Essex coast and DAB is intermittent at best and non existent at worst!!

That would explain it, in the heady heights of South Norfolk we are 41m above sea level!

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3 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

That would explain it, in the heady heights of South Norfolk we are 41m above sea level!

 

Altitude isn't really necessarily a factor. We're pretty high up (our village is called Heage, which is a contraction of High Edge) but DAB doesn't always work well.  We've been on a campsite near the N Norfolk coast where there was no TV signal at all, according to friends who had one in their van. 

 

It also doesn't help that our 19th century stone cottage's rooms are like Faraday's cages, and trying to get WiFi into all of them is a nightmare (EE doesn't work indoors at all).  WiFi's OK if you live in a brick-built house with stud and plaster internal walls, but for us - not so much.  That wasn't a factor when we bought it 40+ years ago 🙂  I just had to update the number of mains power socket from one to how many we have now - a lot, but still not enough!

 

It's worst in summer when the trees to the SW of our garden are in full leaf because that's the direction of the transmitter and mobile mast.  Don't know where the TV transmitters are because we don't have a TV and, hence, no antenna.

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1 hour ago, Robert Cracknell said:

Geoff, I had that problem but I bought one of those gadgets that sends the Internet signal round the household ring main. You had a plug in device which could be moved from room to room or you purchased as many as you wanted. Even worked in the garage at the bottom of my drive!

 

I tried one but I have my PC and its various attachments on a common filtered 4 outlet mains extension screwed to the side of my desk and that stops the WiFi, too.

 

Just came across this quote by Bjarne Stroustrup, a programmer (or coder as they seem to be called now).   He said “I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because now I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.”

 

My feelings exactly 🙂   And I used to do some programming as part of my job.

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