Mobile is the future, if you have a signal
Network signal strength is a problem for many of us. OpenSignal have just released a new report on the state of the situation in the UK, with information crowdsourced via their app. Ofcam have also just released an app themselves.
http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/mobile-is-the-future-if-you-have-a-signal-1-7610957
I ran a project with Birmingham Women’s Hospital (my current employer) looking at the viability of using 3g/4g to enable mobile working for community midwives. We had to insist that any EPR system had an offline mode because despite being in the UK’s so called 2nd city, there were areas within the main city that were total blackspots, weirdly enough, Harborne (Edgbaston) was one of them, only one of the most wealthy areas of the city.
I would dread to imagine how other NHS trusts cope, particularly in more rural areas where network coverage can be all but non-existent.
For some time, I’ve been wanting to free myself of my landline, and the £20 odd per month I am forced to pay out for a landline phone service I haven’t used in eons, but with many mobile companies still trying to claim that 500Mb is “All you can eat” lol .. It just isn’t happening (actual phone call with Vodaphone, when they attempted to convince me I’d never use more than that!).
So it’s not just signal at the moment, it’s bandwidth, and competition. I was told by 3 Mobile that they had to withdraw unlimited tethering because of a few rouge users who’d been abusing it. Well, “FIX IT” dear liza !!! It can’t be beyond the whit of 3 Mobile (a technology firm) to work out who’s doing it and throttle them the second they “abuse” it.
Truth is, it’s an excuse to pull back on a deal nobody else joined 3 in making.
I know, how the “signal obese city folk” live, having been recently to the forest of dean, where I couldn’t even make a phone call, never mind worry about data bandwidth, sorting the signal coverage out and not lying about it (as so many of the providers do), seems a loft but necessary goal on our path towards a truly mobile future.
Not having unlimited downloads/uploads on mobile is so outdated. If the telecoms industry can manage it with broadband, why not with mobile? Mobile use is on the rise and I think we will soon hit breaking point. Something has to happen to change the status quo.