What are everyone's thoughts on the 4g scandal?

Basically 4g is being introduced to the UK, bringing download speeds way ahead of most home broadband connections to mobile users. Everything Everywhere (A joint venture between the owners of T-Mobile and Orange) have been allowed by OFCOM to launch 4g first, ahead of the other major networks. They have now launched a new brand, EE, which will be the only 4g network in the country initially. They were allowed to do this as they had unused capacity on their current radio spectrum and the other networks now have to wait until some time in 2013 when OFCOM hold an auction for new radio frequencies reserved for 4g.

Surely a regulatory body like OFCOM is there to ensure monopolies and unfair competition are not possible? Yet they are deliberately giving one network, at least a 6 month head start and a massive competitive advantage.

With the new rumoured to be 4g compatible iphone 5 launching tomorrow, it will be mighty interesting to see if you will be able to get one on an EE contract. If you can, EE will have a truly gigantic advantage.

I fail to see the scandal, EE have unused bandwidth so are using it for 4g, not their fault others have used up their space.

Id locked it using SOTI Mobi Control so I have control of it, not 02, so I've unlocked it.

EE's spare bandwidth came about because they merged two big networks to create the biggest mobile network in this country. OFCOM are then allowing the biggest network to launch 4g with the iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 and Nokia Lumia 920 months ahead of the bandwidth auction that will allow the other networks into the market.

It's anti competitive as they've just handed EE, already the biggest network, an enormous leg up on the other networks.

Would delaying EE's launch until 2013 not have been fairer?

OFCOM are there to prevent such things surely?



I agree with the other networks. They didn't create the spare capacity through investment, they did it through being the biggest. They are now going to go from the biggest network to being the dominant network. I think it's clearly harmful for competition in the market, as they could easily charge £60 per month and people would still flock to it as it's the only network with 4g.

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Thoughts on the iphone 5?

Exactly as expected - precisely why I'm disappointed. I would have loved Apple to have thrown in something that had a bit of shock value but perhaps that's Apple's appeal the fact you know what you can get with an iphone.

Apple consumers wont care though. People buy with their eyes. No-one apart from the phone buffs give a rats about specs. As long as the phone looks different to previous models and is pretty then it will still fly off the shelves.

I've watched half an hour of their conference and I can't see a single meaningful difference. It just seems like they've changed the power lead connector, just to be annoying and money grab as people either need their adapter or new peripherals. Other than that and a slightly (But not significantly) improved processor, I can't see why anyone would buy one. The operating system seems the same, meaning it's still inferior to Android (IMO of course before I get applenated). The physical look of the product is almost identical, it's slightly bigger, lighter and thinner, but you'd struggle to differentiate it from the 4s. Overall the impression is meh, not fussed. One has to wonder if Apple has run out of ideas

I'm happy to upgrade to iOS6 for free in a weeks time. That'll do for me

The problem with all high end mobile phones now is there isn't much more they can do with them. yes, bigger screen, processor, memory 4G etc. It's really the software where the innovation will come. Personally I think apple should have given the iphone5 a mininum of 4.5"-4.8" screen with a 1600 x 900 resolution, and then made the onboard memory 32GB -128GB, and included NFC.

Your post just seems to be an anti Apple rant TBH. You say theres no difference but accuse them of money grabbing because they've changed something. They will never make wholesale changes on each version, they are only ever going to try and improve on what is already a successful product. Why would anyone buy one you ask? well if you have an iPhone 4 and your contract is up and you like the iPhone and the platform the question would be why wouldn't you get one?

I make no bones, I like Apples products, I find them well built and extremely well designed. I have used Macs all my working life, I'm not a fan boy as there are a lot of aspects of the company I don't like and I don't think they are immune from criticism, but I do think that some people forget Apple is a company that is there to make money, yet they get constantly get accused of 'money grabbing', erm I would suggest most companies are. Apple running out of ideas? there seems to be no evidence to suggest this at all.

I was just expecting more I guess. I thought there would have been something a bit more special. When the 4S was released the rumours were the 5 would be significantly different, curved screen, wireless charging etc. The press talk was that Apple had something truly special to show off this time. Then some third party manufacturers came out saying the 5 would absolutely destroy everything on the market in terms of spec, and it hasn't and it's no different from the 4S bar an upgraded processor that I can see. I watched half an hour of their conference and couldn't figure out what the buzz word improvements are, you can usually pick up very quickly on what is better about a new device.

And changing the charge input is just petty, no need for that at all. What a kick in the teeth to all it's fans who now how to potentially buy new chargers, car chargers, desk docks and speaker docks.

Changing the dock connector isn't just petty, its 80% smaller in size meaning it takes up less room inside meaning the phone can be made thinner.

And to be fair the press speculating and bigging up a product they nothing about is hardly a thing to beat Apple up about. The iPhone 5 is an improvement on the 4S its the same price for a better product, its not changed the market but to be fair to apple they've already done that twice in the last 6 years (iPhone and iPad)

It is just petty, if they are intent on making it smaller, why not move to the industry standard one? And why are they charging £25 for the adapter when it's just a piece of plastic and probably costs a few pence to produce?

Because they are a company and they exist to make profit. If they had moved to the industry standard one (is there one?) the they would still be selling an adapter at £25, you will also be able to get a third party adapter at a fraction of the cost,

Should computers still have SCSI drives because changing to USB would mean changing peripherals?

Also you are talking as though people are being 'forced' to buy the new phone, don't want to buy an adapter for your old stuff, don't buy a new phone or get the 4S which is still available at a lower price.

I see christopher is one of "those" Apple people

To be fair Apple wouldn't be the main beneficiary of the change, the vast proportion of addons are made by third party manufacturers, many not part of Apple's "Made For" scheme.

They will still make many millions from the adapters alone. There are a lot of Appleites who will only buy Apple products. It always pains me at work when I see the volumes of orders we get for official Apple headphones, which up to this point have been awful and horrendously overpriced. People will still buy their chargers and adapters.

The people who lose out are those people who either buy Apple's adapters or those who already had peripherals based on the old system.

A lot of the smaller third party manufacturers will also lose out as the cost of designing and producing new products will put a big dent in their cashflow.

[url=http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/10324/micro-usb-mobile-phone-standardMicro USB[/url. [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/5685514/Manufacturers-agree-on-standard-phone-charger.htmlApparently[/url Apple signed up to this.



No but computers do still have SCSI drives for reasons totally unrelated to USB. Mainly because there's no real overlap between the use cases for SCSI and USB.

A better analogy may be the move from the parallel port to USB for connecting printers. This may not help your case though as for many years the majority of both computers and printers supported both parallel port and USB.

Erm, Apple used SCSI for peripherals, until dropping it for USB.

From Apple's website

Answer: SCSI, or Small Computer System Interface, is a standard for connecting peripherals to your computer, including disk and cartridge drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners, and other devices. A SCSI port was included on most Macintosh systems up until the iMac and the 1999 models of the Power Macintosh G3 and Macintosh Server G3.

So there clearly is an overlap.

Anyway, I have never understood people liked Saddened who seem to get worked up over a device that they clearly aren't going to buy, he seems to want Apple to come up with something groundbreaking but sticking with outdate things, the connector on the current iPhones is from the first iPod which is 11 years old, its about time they updated it.

How do you transfer your current phone number to a new phone ?

Take SIM out of old phone and put it in the new one

I wasnt exactly enthralled by the new iPhone and i have time on my 4S contract so ill decide what to do when that is finished.
I think they are making it very friendly to the US market with its new features such as passbook and the like. I dont think it applied all to well with the UK market, i imagine the new Maps will have London down to a T but other cities we will have to wait for much like how over here Siri cannot be used to find restaurants etc. Passbook will take time to make its mark in the UK imo The bigger screen was a must and they kindly threw in the Retina screen for good measure and because they can. The pin thing doesnt bother me because if youre spending however many quids it will take to get the new iPhone then more than likely you knew there would be a new connector priced around 30 quid to buy too. 25 quid isnt too bad. The panorama camera is a nice touch as is the super duper fast wireless.

I love Apple products and went Mac a while back but there isnt much more they could do with the iPhone, once they make a smaller iPad they will have exhausted that market too. I wont be rushing out to buy one but i am interested in having a go on one and seeing the difference. I'd ideally like to take one out of the Apple Store and use it where there is a 3G/E signal and see how good it was then.

I'm not worked up about it, it's not doing me any harm. I'm just discussing it. The £25 adapter and not following the industry standard that everyone else does is just petty.

There is no reason the couldn't have used the industry standard Mini USB connector, apart that is from the £25 they think they can charge for an adaptor.

Indeed.

If he meant transferring it to a new phone on a new network, he'd have to approach his current network for a PAC code, which when given to the new network will ensure a magic changeover onto the new network (After a few days).