Mobile phone – Hinterland https://hinterland.org.uk Rural News Fri, 15 Nov 2019 06:22:21 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 ‘Doomsday’ texts: will you be the first to receive them? https://hinterland.org.uk/doomsday-texts-will-you-be-the-first-to-receive-them/ Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:51:30 +0000 http://www.hinterland.org.uk/?p=2224 Its good that they are looking at rural aswell as urban applications for this fascinating piece of technology. Lets hope it doesn’t get abused to send us Big Brother style messages about other aspects of our life in the future! This story tells us:

The messages that would allow the public to be updated on natural disasters, terror attacks or large-scale accidents will be piloted in Yorkshire, Suffolk and Glasgow over the next few months.

Cell broadcasting, which allows messages to be sent out to every active handset near a chosen mobile mast without the need for individual telephone numbers, will be tested along with text messages sent out using the locations of phones tracked by mobile network operators.

The pilots, in Easingwold in North Yorkshire, Glasgow city centre, and Leiston in Suffolk, will assess how well the technology works and how the public reacts to it.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: “The Government and three mobile phone companies, O2, Vodafone and EE, will conduct separate tests later this year to look at a how different technologies work and how the public react when they receive an emergency alert to their phone.

“I want to reassure the public that these tests are not linked to any threat or specific hazard in their area. We have included diverse areas – both rural and urban – as part of our tests, as we want to look at how effective the different systems are in different areas in using mobile phones to deliver mass messaging.

]]> Will 4G mobile auction meet £3.5bn target? https://hinterland.org.uk/will-the-4g-mobile-auction-meet-the-3-5bn-target/ Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:55:33 +0000 http://www.hinterland.org.uk/?p=1643 For Hinterland readers who are not technophobes, this article on mobile phones reports how 4G (fourth generation) is being introduced to replace existing 3G coverage, which will give smartphone users faster data downloads. The deadline has now passed for applications to take part in the auction of the UK’s 4G phone network spectrum which the Government hopes will raise £3.5 billion. The auction to access the network will start in January, with licences granted in February and March and 4G services available from May. The £3.5 billion target figure originally came from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the agency set up by the government to independently monitor public sector finances.

The auction of the 3G network back in 2000 raised £22 billion for the Government. However, Dan Worth, news editor of technology website V3 describes how “the mobile phone network market is quite different now, it is not flushed with cash like it was in 2000. Then the mobile phone market was in its infancy, and the networks were able to enjoy substantial rises in profits as many people bought mobile phones for the first time. By contrast, the UK market is now saturated, and such big rises in profits are a thing of the past”.  Regardless of the income generated by the 4G auction, for many of us who live and work in rural England, in some places getting a phone signal with the current network is a struggle.

Hinterland readers may be interested to hear about the Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP) being led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The project is taking place until 2015 and  aims improve mobile coverage for businesses and consumers by working with industry to address what they call “mobile not-spots”.

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