General Android-ness

[Inspector Sands]

I was in the process of moving our business provider from Voda to, potentially, T-Mobile/Orange - given the recent acquisition; as T-Mobile resellers have been actively pitching to customers that both networks would merge, and the benefits would be suitably astonishing.

Registration for roaming onto Orange is open here: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/coming-soon/share/ I'm not sure if it will automatically switch as the last section of this article http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... ost-714603 mentions automaticly switching to the strongest from next year (as well as some interesting stuff about a 'multinet future')

I assume the reason it's opt in (and maybe the lack of data use) is because they want to try and tweak the joint network before letting it loose on the masses.

I heard from both my contact in the telecoms market (as well as here I think?) that this in fact is totally bogus, and they have no intention of offering access to both networks in an either/or way - and that Orange will be exclusively for business contracts, with T-Mobile for domestic. So I wonder how that fits with what you're both saying.

A comment on the above article suggests that Orange will be the premium brand and T the budget brand. I suppose they have to distinguish the two somehow if they're intent on keeping them seperate.

Letting both access both networks is a logical step in terms of savings that will be made in network infrastructure - both building and maintaining

[Pete]

edit: oh, got there first Inspector

I heard from both my contact in the telecoms market (as well as here I think?) that this in fact is totally bogus, and they have no intention of offering access to both networks in an either/or way - and that Orange will be exclusively for business contracts, with T-Mobile for domestic.

Well they're supposedly about to do the opposite
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/Mobile_Exe ... tober.aspx

Orange and T-Mobile customers in the UK will be able to roam across both networks from 5 October, Everything Everywhere CEO Tom Alexander said today (3 September). ‘We see this as a step change for Everything Everywhere,’ said Alexander, speaking at the first year anniversary of the merger announcement between the two companies.

Users will be asked to ‘opt-in’ to the new service for the time being. The reason for this is that the networks handle around 1,600 different handsets and some devices may have problems with the service. By opting in customer service staff can find out what handset each user has and inform them if their device has any problems.

However, from the beginning of 2011 the roaming service will become automatic. The phones will track the strength of the signals and move seamlessly onto the strongest one available irrespective of which network the user is on.

Orange Users: http://orange.co.uk/share

T-Mobile Users: http://t-mobile.co.uk/share

[Gavin Scott]

Letting both access both networks is a logical step in terms of savings that will be made in network infrastructure - both building and maintaining

Thanks for the info, chaps.

What I've been told, from an infrastructure perspective, is that they are entirely different networks, and that the cost to unify them in any meaningful way - one that would offer the economy of maintaining a single but larger set of masts, control, uplink etc - is too prohibitive for them to consider.

With that in mind, although you can roam from one set of masts to another, the user won't see any savings you might expect from suddenly being within the largest mobile operator in Europe (possibly the world?).

My objective was to find an operator which not only offered great coverage both domestically, but also in Europe, the Emirates and the US, while reducing costs significantly.

This announcement indicates I'll benefit from coverage, but not reduced cost.

The market seems muddled at the moment - but at least I'm a bit further forward with the benefit of these press releases.

We still have 3 or so months until it would be worth an operator buying us out of our 24 month deal, so I'll watch with interest.

[Inspector Sands]

Letting both access both networks is a logical step in terms of savings that will be made in network infrastructure - both building and maintaining

What I've been told, from an infrastructure perspective, is that they are entirely different networks, and that the cost to unify them in any meaningful way - one that would offer the economy of maintaining a single but larger set of masts, control, uplink etc - is too prohibitive for them to consider.

But as they are separate networks that will effectively act as one (assuming the data networks are merged too) surely it will mean that there will be many gaps in coverage that they won't need to fill and areas that are superserved can have their redundancy removed? For example if there's a particular area that both Orange and T-Mobile cover really well and the lease comes up on a site or the equipment for one cell site needs replacing they can just close it, assuming what's left has the capacity

EDIT: According to http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/Mobile_Exe ... _MBNL.aspx
Orange will be decommissioning some of their 'masts' and the rest will move over to the joint network which 3 and T-Mobile currently use

[Gavin Scott]

But as they are separate networks that will effectively act as one (assuming the data networks are merged too) surely it will mean that there will be many gaps in coverage that they won't need to fill and areas that are superserved can have their redundancy removed? For example if there's a particular area that both Orange and T-Mobile cover really well and the lease comes up on a site or the equipment for one cell site needs replacing they can just close it, assuming what's left has the capacity

Which serves to lessen their overheads - but things like free or reduced cost Orange > T-Mobile calls are not on the table for the consumer.

[Inspector Sands]

Which serves to lessen their overheads - but things like free or reduced cost Orange > T-Mobile calls are not on the table for the consumer.

No, of course... they've presumably both got a lot of savings to make just to get into profit, hence why they merged in the first place!

[Inspector Sands]

I've been trying out a few streaming live radio apps recently. Both Absolute and Global do nice Android apps (Global do one for each of their stations but they're all the same and can access all the others). Is there one for BBC stations?

The BBC Browsecast App has had 'listen live' removed and then reinstated in recent updates but not only is it difficult to get a connection when it works it uses 'Streaming Media Player' which doesn't run in the background

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

I found beebplayer to be adequate for streaming BBC radio. Not had much success with the fm radio, so I was quite happy when I found beebplayer worked.

[Gavin Scott]

I found beebplayer to be adequate for streaming BBC radio. Not had much success with the fm radio, so I was quite happy when I found beebplayer worked.

And its good with the TV channels too.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

I found beebplayer to be adequate for streaming BBC radio. Not had much success with the fm radio, so I was quite happy when I found beebplayer worked.

And its good with the TV channels too.

Quite!

[Inspector Sands]

Beebplayer has been discontinued and removed from the Market though