Posts by Commswonk

Re: Omnishambles

Had the Home Office had some people with a bit of common sense they would have bought Airwave and then they'd have however many years they would have liked for ~£800M not three for £1.1Bn

Part of me wants to agree with you, but your conclusion appears to need (at least) two assumptions to be true, which they aren't.

Firstly, buying Airwave means taking over the ownership of the base stations and the Switched Management Infrastructure (SwMI) that controls them. Such a purchase would not include the network connections (Ground Based Network) that joins them all together. Those circuits are leased from circuit providers (e.g. BT) so continuing use of the overall system would require ongoing line leasing costs.

Secondly, neither the base sites nor the SwMI look after themselves; they need people (quite a few of them!) who can attend a site in the event of any problem that cannot be sorted out remotely, including replacement of equipment that has gone faulty and requires repair on a bench somewhere. The response time required in the event of a fault that has taken a site (or part therof) out of service is fairly short (hours not days or weeks) and all those people are a recurring cost that has to be met if the service is to continue.

Much as we might wish it to be true, it is simply wrong to assume that there would be a cost saving of "system lease cost" minus "purchase price" there for the taking, because sadly there isn't.

I am not trying to defend the charges that Motorola will present to the Home Office (or more correctly us taxpayers); all I am saying is that your underlying assumptions are untrue and thus your idea, as it stands, doesn't work.

Re: Am I Missing Something?

Just remember this is a government contract and nothing like those in the real world.

This is what happens when process becomes more important than outcome.

Awarding a contract is always seen as the endpoint, when (in this case) the proper goal is effective recruitment.

Re: Push to talk!

Hopefully they are not, replaceable batteries are not a good thing. (etc)

I think "Duh" is appropriate here. Have you ever worked with (say) TETRA equipment with replaceable batteries? They are not too hot to handle when removed from a fast charger, and the radio terminal is out of action for a few tens of seconds while the change is made. (Better to switch off first, and switch on again after the change has been made, given all the handshaking required.)

Do you really want Police Officers to be stuck out somewhere with a dead radio? Dead simply because the battery didn't last the full shift, and they can't change the battery. In addition, even if it does last a full (perhaps busy) shift it will not be available for the next shift because it has to sit in an office somewhere charging up.

Do you really want to incur the costs associated with having to have a heap of spare radios to allow half to be "out" while the rest are charging? Or is every officer going to have to carry two just in case one conks out with a discharged battery.

Trust me; replaceable abtteries are not a hazard.

I don't think you have thought this through...

Re: #FreeEmbassyCat

I am of the view that the Ecuadorian Embassy staff have taken this stance following complaints from the cat.

It must find the smell intolerable, and I don't mean the litter tray...

I'm still amused how mine came out as "Rogan" once.

Nice one, Josh...

Re: fully working 10Nm node

I think I see the problem here - they're trying to make chips in Newton-metres.

Ah yes; all torque, no action.

Re: English Idio.....

I have never heard the word Compo used in any other context but as an abbreviation for Compensation.

For some of us the word "Compo" will always mean "Compo (composite) Rations" unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

Re: Not using Apps? Its no longer optional anymore

Given that with a FitBit, I can "run" a marathon without getting off the sofa...

Please spare us the details of your private life.

Having said that Mrs Commswonk once tried a FitBit or equivalent and was very surprised to find that while she had walked perhaps 10 or 15 yards hanging out the washing her "activity tracker" was of the view that she had done some considerable running. I had to explain that as it was mounted on her wrist it was merely counting how much arm waving she had done and nothing else.

Come to think of it she gave up on the idea more or less immediately thereafter.

Re: So once again the Home Offices proves itself

And does anyone believe that "Substantially the same" claim about what Motorola charged them for that 3 year extension?

Given that the initial high cost of providing TETRA / Airwave will have been to cover the high costs associated with site acquisition and construction, and those costs ought to have been amortised years ago there is an arguable case that any extension to the contract should be relatively modestly priced. (Some hope!!) At the same time Motorola must know full well that it has the Home Office over a barrel, with nowhere else to go.

Ultimately this whole sorry enterprise will provide another case study for collectors of botched procurements. I doubt if the supposed cost savings will ever materialise; EE (and I suspect Samsung) must be ratcheting up development costs that were not factored in at the time of the original bidding process, and they will want to recover those costs.

I strongly suspect that there have been no meaningful proof - of - concept trials yet; had there been their "success" would have been trumpeted for all to hear. When TETRA was adopted it was after trials conducted on Jersey; I suspect that the adoption of ESN was based on scribbled notes written by sales droids, and that those are no longer worth the paper they were scribbled on, and quite probably never were.

I also suspect that the serious slippage in the target date will also provide serious headaches for the user community, who are faced with the real prospect of having to replace existing equipment with "more of the same" when its useful lifetime might be very short.

The expression "not fit for purpose" is on my view vastly overworked, but I can see no other description applicable to the clowns in the Home Office who have committed the user community to a system that apparently cannot currently be shown to work and the taxpayer for a large bill with not much to show for it. A bit like the Nimrod Maritime Patrol aircraft programme if my memory is correct...

Re: Schools need to step up to the plate

...step up to the plate

That is a cliché, and should therefore be avoided like the plague.

Re: App Neutrality

Even though I work in the valley of the shadow of tech, I will trust no benchmark, for bias and big money surrounds me. Only in real world testing, will I take comfort.

Now that really is exquisite . Have an upvote; would award more if I could.

Re: Yeah, right

@ steelpillow: We need legislation to force telcos to deliver at a fixed price.

I think you may be confusing "at a fixed price" with "cheaply".

At the risk of stating the obvious they do not mean the same thing.

Re: Why city planners love autonomous vehicles

Fewer car parking spaces means more for living, which either means higher densities and potentially lower rents.

Still a flawed case, I fear. If we start with the assumption that people will still travel to work by car (now "autonomous") because - if nothing else - the rail transport system is incapable of providing sufficient additional space then if there is no local parking the cars will have to take themselves to some location that isn't local.

Where exactly? We now have a situation whereby a vehicle has to travel empty perhaps almost as far as it travelled with its passenger(s) which is hopelessly inefficient in fuel usage (the vehicle will need more charging than it would have done if it had parked close to its daytime destination) and will actually add to congestion, not reduce it. At least at the moment commuter cars are out of the way once they are at their destination; take away the daytime parking and they will have to remain on the road, which doesn't look all that sensible.

The solution to a problem must not involve creating an even bigger one, and IMHO your "solution" would do just that.

I wrote: I have one more phone call to try tomorrow;

I know tomorrow never comes but this update might be worthwhile:

I 'phoned BG Homecare's published "Complaints" number; OK it still hit a voice recognition system but only one word was required to get things moving, if a 10 minutes wait for someone to actually speak to me qualifies as "moving". (In that 10 minutes I got rather bored with the annoying nauzac and exhortations to do things on - line) I was eventually answered by a Welsh name with a Welsh accent which was a promising step. 5 or 10 minutes later the relevant booking was made so - on the face of it - the matter is resolved.

He also agreed (yeah right) that the voice recognition system wasn't entirely perfect.

Re: Mailing list fail

The guy I was taking to told me a couple of fun little anecdotes.

Bit of a Freudian Slip, that.

An AC wrote: What if they gather a piece of evidence proving your innocence but keep it secret to convict you?

Alan Brown then wrote: Actually you don't need a 'what if', because this has happened on multiple occasions and cited several "historical" instances.

Think about more recent news, reporting numerous trials (mainly for rape IIRC) that have collapsed with "Not Guilty" being awarded by the Judge because the Prosecution (as embodied by both the Police and the CPS) have failed to follow the required Advanced Disclosure procedures; not just "failing" but wilfully (it would seem) sidestepping them and denying the existence of any undisclosed material when challenged, right up to the point where the Defence has managed to track down the existence and substance of undisclosed material while a trial is actually in progress. Whether that counts as Noble Cause Corruption or not is neither here nor there.

At the same time it is reported that detection and conviction rates are falling to a dismally low percentage, and I very much doubt if that situation would be improved even if every police officer had his own personal IMSI catcher to play with.

Re: Is it important?

@ Halcin: Yes! This is yet another example of the reprehensible behavior of marketing skum. It is not acceptable to confuse, bamboozle, trick people into buying one thing by insinuating it's another.

Well put. Sadly with politicians working by the same principles there seems little chance of legislation being enacted to put a stop to it. For a politician it is acceptable to confuse, bamboozle, trick people into buying one thing by insinuating it's another.

What chance of a remedy when the words "pot, kettle, and black" are so apposite...

Re: I've said it before, I'll say it again.

forced to listen to Vogon poetry for the rest of their lives...

Ah the nostalgia. Thinking about it wouldn't Freddled Gruntbuggly and Foonting Turlingdromes (to mention but two) make superlative pseudonyms for posters on this esteemed site?

If anyone signs up with any of them now we'll all know who gave them the idea...

@ Ledswinger:I hope you feel guilty, now because its people like you that create the demand for this stuff.

No; I don't - not even slightly. Why should I? I have no idea where you are, but I am in the UK where I have no access to US - based information that has not been "polluted" by others who probably have their own axes to grind.

Am I expected to form judgements on the basis of hearsay evidence? Or am I expected to fall into line with the prejudices of others in conformance with a herd mentality? Or am I expected to agree with an opinion (in this case yours) merely because you tell me to?

...the man needs to be dragged to military barber's for a squaddie regulation haircut...

Ah yes; the famous tale (probably not aprocryphal) about the RSM inspecting some squaddies prior to some major parade: Am I hurting you laddie? I ought to be because I'm standing on your hair.

Re: "concerns over its debts owed to private equity parent, Rutland Partners"

Why should they?

Common sense.

Oh wait...

Re: Tesco Does Not Know More About Me

But I bet they are tracking you via your phone.

Not when it's switched of, they aren't. And mine is switched off, because that's the way I live my life, not enslaved to a device. In any case it's a PAYG with no frills whatsoever; anything more than that would serve the needs of others rather than just mine.

Anyway, as it happens cellphone coverage in our nearest Tesco is utterly shit so what's the point in it being on?

Re: I'll have some of that business please

£23m includes the cost of the extended warranty and a premium rate phone call to the customer care team at Lockheed Martin.

"So that we can deal with your query properly please tell us in a few words about the problem you are experiencing."

...

...

...

"I'm sorry I didn't get that; so that we can deal with your query properly please tell us in a few words about the problem you are experiencing."

(repeat, ad nauseam)