David Wheatley
@davwheat_
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20. Work at @Raileasy on @TrainSplit . Student at University of Warwick. Mobile networking and transport are my hobbies. 🇬🇧🇩🇰 All views are my own.
West Sussex, United Kingdom
Joined August 2018
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Send us removal request.
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Three UK hitting peaks of 2.1 Gbps on 140 MHz n78 in an AONB!
This site in Dorking had its backhaul upgraded after a RAN upgrade, and sets a new record for my 3 UK tests.
Fabulous to see mmWave-like performance on Sub-6. There are benefits to NR CA than just "number go whee!"
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Initial outcome of Emergency Alert testing (Cell Broadcast): all networks except Three received an alert in my household.
*One* person in a large group of us around the UK received the alert on Three, in Cardiff.
Let's go into why.
#EmergencyAlerts
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2K
@fionaaajade
you can also use the trainsplit app to save money without being charged a booking fee 🙏
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Today I learned that Avanti trains carry emergency... chocolate?
One way to keep people happy during disruption!
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Pullman Dining on
@GWRhelp
is a fantastic experience, and even more so when you're the only one that's booked it for your journey!
I have been reliably informed that it's typically services to the South West that are booked up, rather than ones to Wales.
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This is probably what happened again this time, which would explain the variety of people to received the alert and who didn't.
In a nutshell, every Three site likely sent the alert only once, and devices don't constantly look for these messages, hence why they should repeat.
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So a FOI has exposed all Thameslink's Class 700 announcements... including
@geofftech
's old Brighton Mainline Improvements one. (All three versions!)
Enjoy:
These will all be on soon :)
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Networks who successfully performed the trial did rebroadcast the signalling (SIB12-v920) continuously for the full 20 minute duration of the test, stopping the alert at about 15:21.
This meant, if you had a device in airplane mode until 15:15, you'd still get the alert.
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The question of why Three didn't propagate the message correctly through its core is an interesting one, and one we also saw in the initial trials last summer.
On my Three device, I received zero signalling at all for the alert on my local Samsung or Ericsson sites.
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Thameslink have expanded their list of destinations to Victoria today.
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Last trial, Three had issues with repetition period and number of broadcasts in their signalling.
That means instead of repeating the alert continuously (>0 =0), or every N secs (>0, >=1), sites would only broadcast it once (=0 =1).
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Brief addendum: the device has to be scanning for the alert, but it is the network's responsibility to tell it to scan for it.
@jamesbatchelor
The alert is split up into multiple message. Below, you can see "warningMessageSegmentNumber-r9 : 1".
How often devices poll is dictated by the network through a SIB1 message, which the device is always looking for.
Vodafone chose rf16. EE did rf32. x10 to get milliseconds.
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Looks like
@SouthernRailUK
have started running 24 coach trains!
Unfortunately it's just an error, but hearing the PIS tell people to travel in the front 12 coaches was hilarious.
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Three UK are rolling out Ericsson's Radio Dot System to select stores.
These offer 10 MHz B1, 15 MHz B3 as well as a total of 140 MHz n78 NR CA.
When saturating downlink, I managed to hit a peak of almost 2 Gbps aggregating this all together. Pretty impressive throughput!
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O2 have deployed a cell-on-wheels in St. James's Park ready for the coronation on 8 May.
B1/3/20/40/40 LTE with no 5G NR. Like all other O2 Nokia sites, we don't get FDD+TDD LTE.
Backhaul is via a Huawei XMC-3, capable here of approx. 2 Gbps at maximum bandwidth.
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Three has successfully tested the UK Emergency Alerts system this morning!
They did not choose to perform a standard alert, like the one received on Sunday, but all devices with test alerts manually enabled successfully received the alert a few minutes ago.
#EmergencyAlerts
Initial outcome of Emergency Alert testing (Cell Broadcast): all networks except Three received an alert in my household.
*One* person in a large group of us around the UK received the alert on Three, in Cardiff.
Let's go into why.
#EmergencyAlerts
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@Jaoheah
@CitizenAnkit
@WhatsApp
They don't store your location, but they need to collect it to forward it to other users. How else will live location work...?
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@brycejustweeted
Network Signal Guru. Requires a rooted Android device, and a premium subscription for most of the features.
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@nicklmg
reducing item quantity on LTTStore seems to reset it to 1 rather than just decreasing it by one.
Almost ended up with one fewer mystery shirt than I intended 🙈
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@fionaaajade
we are working on that, with stuff like our new "your guide to your split tickets" cover page to go along with some e-tickets we issue, which should help to improve the problem
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@AvantiWestCoast
@chilternrailway
@LNRailway
At least you both managed 15 mins of getting on with each other...
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Vodafone and O2 launch 900 MHz spectrum swap
This morning, O2 and Vodafone UK sites across huge swathes of the country swapped to use new spectrum allocations within the 900 MHz band.
Up until today, the 900 MHz frequency band was split into multiple blocks due to how the
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@stecaslin
When you get an SMS, your device has to tell the network it's received this.
If you send 90 million SMS messages at once, that a hell of a lot of traffic.
Networks simply aren't designed for this. It took 2 days to send texts to everyone about COVID in 2020. Not good enough.
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@AustinSuth24732
@patty_no_batty
@LuftkoppTim
@iam_tech
Your picture on the left is barely in focus...
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Vodafone UK's 3G switch-off hits Scotland and North East England
In the last few days, the majority of 3G in Scotland and some of north-east England (northern Newcastle up to the Scottish border) have been switched off.
In the map screenshots below from the 9 January and 16
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@jamesbatchelor
The alert is split up into multiple message. Below, you can see "warningMessageSegmentNumber-r9 : 1".
How often devices poll is dictated by the network through a SIB1 message, which the device is always looking for.
Vodafone chose rf16. EE did rf32. x10 to get milliseconds.
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O2 launches n38 5G in the City of London
While we've seen B38 used in Northern Ireland and on various small cells for capacity, this is the first time we've seen it used for 5G connectivity.
While only 20 MHz of spectrum, it provides impressive download speeds of up to 225 Mbps
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EE's first 3G switch off trial is starting in Warrington on 18 July.
This will be the first opportunity to test parameter changes for handover and reselection between 2G and 4G, similar to Vodafone's tests in Basingstoke earlier this year.
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Things like this really are "use it or lose it" these days. It was only a couple of decades ago that CrossCountry had their Travelling Chef, which has since disappeared.
TfW, GWR and Cal Sleeper remain with proper dining cars. Avanti do serve proper meals in 1st, though.
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The Vodafone-Three merger could turn out to be a huge shake-up of the UK telecoms market.
By looking back at the merger between Orange & T-Mobile as well as Three's telecoms past, I've put together an article about how this could impact the market.
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@Neil_Riley
Is a text message or a phone call "infiltrating" the phone software?
The network informs any device currently connected, irrespective of who you are, about the alert.
It's like saying an advert on TV has infiltrated your brain.
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For a train competition, these analytics are super surprising!
OVER 110 CONCURRENT SITE VIEWERS! 70% coming from links on Twitter, so thank you for all your retweets and likes!
Remember to vote in today's game!
@geofftech
's
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
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@geofftech
It's not as close as Bakerloo/Northern, but it could still change at a moment's notice!
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It's been super close all day and the difference is shrinking!
@ScotRail
vs
@TPExpressTrains
🪄 We've edited the graphs to make one of the lines dashed to help you tell them apart. Thanks to
@rarts
for suggesting this!
➡ ⬅
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
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Lovely to try the new
@AvantiWestCoast
Class 805 "Evero" fleet today on a round trip from London to Chester.
They ride much better than other stock in the fleet, and are a great improvement to those sensitive to the tilt of 390s and 221s (not me, thankfully!).
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We're ready (hopefully) for
@geofftech
's World Cup of lines on the TfL Map '21!
Thank you
@official_gumjoe
for doing the updates to our site from Feb 2021, *and* getting a lovely production API setup ready for me to deploy!
Hope it all works at 9 am...
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@BeastFromEast26
As I said, it was a game of luck. Devices don't routinely look for cell broadcasts continuously while your phone is on to save battery.
If your phone happened to scan for it while it was broadcast, you would have seen it. Otherwise, nothing.
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Looks like Vodafone UK's 3G switch-off is imminent.
Their planned 3G coverage map is now totally blank, signifying the full switch-off should be done within the next "3 months".
Will be interesting if the real timeline matches this.
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Not quite as close as yesterday, but today it's
@GWRHelp
vs
@TfL
's London Overground.
GWR is in the lead by a tad over 1000 votes.
Remember to vote in today's
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
on
@geofftech
's Twitter profile!
Track the results live:
➡➡ ⬅⬅
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@geofftech
@official_gumjoe
This algorithm looks for all his tweets, starting from the newest, that contain
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
, aren't retweets, aren't quote tweets, and returns a max of 25 results.
We then strip out any tweets that don't have polls.
This is fine for discovering new polls.
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In today's
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
, it's CrossCountry (
@CrossCountryUK
) vs Thameslink (
@TLRailUK
).
Follow along with
@geofftech
's polls live at .
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@joncstone
it's also worth noting that most people who travel on Southern or Thameslink only tickets can actually use GX, and if penalty fared can appeal and get a refund.
TOCs cannot limit tickets to a brand, and they don't want to bother trying to fight this in court since they'll lose.
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Vodafone has taken a huge leap with events this weekend.
It seems only Vodafone and O2 have temporary sites for
@BSTHydePark
. Vodafone blows the rest out of the water with 320+ Mbps on 5G, compared to O2's 50 Mbps.
Very glad to see my experience at Finsbury was a one-off!
Glad to see all four networks with varying presence at Finsbury Park today across 5 different temp sites I've seen so far.
Three are by far the best performing network at the moment, with EE second, followed up by O2 with Vodafone taking last place.
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@_clara_lfc
When I worked at my last company, I had a relative die and I needed a day off for the funeral.
My manager told me they were too distant from me (it was my grandmother) so they told me I had to use annual leave...
Good thing I checked the policy because that wasn't the case, but
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Looks like 3 UK's data services have fallen over this afternoon.
Issue is likely authentication-related. Customers can attach to 3G for calls/texts but not data, and no 4G/5G attach is possible.
Customers currently connected to the network are fine, but an airplane mode toggle
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How many times have I walked past City Thameslink and not noticed these!
I assume they're ventilation shafts for the underground Thameslink platforms.
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@AoC_info
@AoCDavidH
@GillianKeegan
A massive thank you to
@AoCDavidH
on behalf of all BTEC and Vocational exam students for your efforts over the last 24 hours.
We do greatly appreciate how hard you're trying to make the government see sense and cancel the January exam series.
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@BreesAnna
"To stand up for our children."
Sorry, what? Might be nice to ask the children what they'd actually prefer rather than typical adults, once again, speaking on their behalf.
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Three UK is making extensive use of its 140 MHz C-band spectrum allocation, deploying additional n78 carriers on top of its standard 100 MHz carrier.
Second carrier performance (in this case, 30 MHz) peaked at ~270 Mbps, with an overall throughput peak of 1527 Mbps.
(1/3)
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@BMLBod
I love that SBB can actually act as a journey planner in the UK, too. One of the things I consider basically a golden standard when working on TrainSplit's app.
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@seatsixtyone
Alternatively, you could save 5p by buying the High Wycombe fare and then excessing to the Any Permitted for the return leg only on board the train (permitted in the NRCoT).
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O2 UK has now enabled 5G NSA with LTE TDD on Nokia sites.
O2 Nokia sites typically use separate basebands for TDD and FDD LTE, which historically meant they used B40 for LTE-only capacity.
As more 5G devices enter the market, the next logical step is NSA availability.
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Both Jubilee and DLR are storming ahead in terms of votes so far!
For data collection, we're limited by Twitter's API which seems to only be updating the # of votes every 10 mins or so, meaning our data isn't detailed.
Get voting!
#WorldCupOfTubeLines
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Thameslink's Littlehampton service will be no more from the May timetable change.
It's being converted into a Southern service, and will, interestingly, not call at Gatwick Airport.
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Great to see
@METROBUS
rolling out a fleet of hydrogen-powered buses on their Fastway 10 route.
They have a total of 20 on order, plus a new hydrogen refuelling station in Crawley.
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Oh, how the tides turn!
DLR have to play catch-up as THAMESLINK TAKES THE LEAD!
@TLRailUK
's efforts are paying off!
This vote is still too close to call — exceeded 18500 votes (over 2x that of 2019!)
Head to
@official_gumjoe
's site:
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EE has started deploying n1 (2100 MHz) DSS in the UK
Exploring one of these sites with
@PedroClarke1
on City & Islington College, we found n1 provided peaks of 65 Mbps, limited by the usage of 16 QAM DL.
On my Mi 11, n1 happily aggregated with EE's standard 3/3/7/7 4G carriers.
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@PettittEmily
Average CAF rolling stock...
Astonishing how they keep getting it wrong and keep getting contracts.
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Interesting to see Vodafone's coverage map updates this week.
It appears they've been tweaking how they calculate predicted coverage, and this has caused a significant change across their 4G coverage map compared to this time last week.
In this example comparison showing before
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Today's
#WorldCupOfTrainOperators
game is Southern (
@SouthernRailUK
) versus SouthEastern (
@Se_Railway
).
Both run Electrostars, which we all know are one of the best trains. 😉
Southern fell behind at the start, it seems, but they can make it back!
LIVE:
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EE begins 3G switch-off in North and Mid Wales
In addition to my reporting of Vodafone's 3G switch-off last night, EE have also switched off 3G coverage in North and Mid Wales.
This follows on from their initial switch-off trials area of Warrington in July 2023, and coincides
Vodafone UK's 3G switch-off hits Scotland and North East England
In the last few days, the majority of 3G in Scotland and some of north-east England (northern Newcastle up to the Scottish border) have been switched off.
In the map screenshots below from the 9 January and 16
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Welcome to my railway Delay Repay wrapped 2023
Total compensation: £478.27
Mean average: £6.64
Median average: £2.65
Total claims: 91
Highest from one claim: £76.55
Lowest from one claim: 70p
Claims per TOC (top 3):
1. GTR (69)
2. Avanti (7)
3. GWR (6)
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@5impleSteph
@DavidFrankal
People keep saying this but it's the third party retailers that actually do the ticketing innovation. e-Tickets and s-Tickets wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Trainline and other TPRs.
It was Trainline who wrote the entire spec for electronic (barcode) season tickets.
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Had great fun exploring the Cornish branches today, with potentially my last ever HST journey.
It's upsetting how these trains which are approaching 50 years old can provide a more comfortable journey than 7-year-old IETs!
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Aaand today's polls and yesterday's results from
@geofftech
's
#WorldCupOfTubeLines
are live!
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@rupert_airbear
@merseyrail
If this is actually what happened, the penalty fare is not valid.
Tickets are always valid, whether CCST (paper), e-ticket, or paper "bog roll".
I've started a thread for this on the forum:
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@360_brat
@ArthurJHayes1
@fionaaajade
Thanks both! :)
PS: If you ever use our apps, we're actually slowly rolling out a new interface for them. If you want to be the first to try them out, follow the instructions at 😛
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On 15 Mar, I toured some new EE trial 5G NR deployments in London.
These sites feature:
- dual-carrier n78
- n3
- n28
- DSS n1
- NR CA
Pixel 6 Pro aggregated both n78 carriers, and Mi 11 aggregated n28 and n78.
n3 managed a brilliant 172 Mbps at Southall.
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The AIR 3258 offers a max carrier bandwidth of 300 MHz with 320W output power.
2W/MHz power levels is a good baseline for n78 deployments, making this radio perfect for a UK post-merger market.
VF/3 (VHUK below) could run up to 160 MHz n78 (subject to licenses) without issue.
Vodafone UK Ericsson network refresh brings new capability while ripening foundations for proposed network merger with Three UK.
Centre stage is Ericsson's highly capable AIR 3258 that enables potent support for a plethora of possible merger spectral outcomes.
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London's Winter Wonderland is back and filled with wonderful temporary network infrastructure.
Both O2 and Vodafone have high capacity implementations, with O2 having numerous DAS nodes across the site, and multi-carrier NR for Vodafone.
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O2 appears to be trialling LTE FDD+TDD in Nokia zones.
Historically, this hasn't been enabled for the same reasons as LTE TDD + 5G NSA (quote tweeted), but Nokia sites appear to be getting some love these days!
This set of changes puts Nokia and Ericsson sites on-par.
O2 UK has now enabled 5G NSA with LTE TDD on Nokia sites.
O2 Nokia sites typically use separate basebands for TDD and FDD LTE, which historically meant they used B40 for LTE-only capacity.
As more 5G devices enter the market, the next logical step is NSA availability.
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@fionaaajade
tbf it's possible to argue that about any particular ticket anyway given the incredible number of restrictions you're expected to read through and cross-reference, but that is the point of using a website to do it all for you
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Another Three UK Ericsson Radio Dot install seen today in Basingstoke.
Performance was about 1.8 Gbps downlink, which is about 200 Mbps less than I saw in Brighton. (Uplink untested.)
The store was closed when we tested so we couldn't quite get as close as desired.
Three UK are rolling out Ericsson's Radio Dot System to select stores.
These offer 10 MHz B1, 15 MHz B3 as well as a total of 140 MHz n78 NR CA.
When saturating downlink, I managed to hit a peak of almost 2 Gbps aggregating this all together. Pretty impressive throughput!
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O2's post-spectrum-swap 80 MHz n78 is live on a Nokia site near Hillingdon Hospital, London.
This trade was agreed to by the two networks in early 2021.
The NR carrier managed an impressive 708 Mbps, showing the performance that O2 has to offer when the swap spreads nationwide.
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@topjohnwu
I recently got a iPad 6, and the animations on iOS seem sooo much smoother than my 90 Hz Android phone.
I guess animations are just another thing that Apple does better.
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0
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BT/EE are making the most of their Street Hub 2 infrastructure with the deployment of new Nokia 4G small cells.
These small cells provide 2T2R 2600 MHz and 1800 MHz LTE, with a max throughput of just over 300 Mbps when aggregating the carriers together.
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Rode the
@StagecoachEScot
Autonomous Bus today!
The bus can change lanes, accelerate and decelerate automatically. It also reacts to dynamic speed limits on gantries.
We also found it recognises red X's and closed bus lanes when it pulled in and slammed on the brakes!
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New iPhone SE's specs state it only supports 2x2 MIMO for 5G NR, along with n7/38/41/77/78/79 support, despite the 3GPP NR spec requires a minimum of 4 Rx ports.
We'll soon see whether this new iPhone is breaking the 3GPP spec, or if the listed specs are incorrect.
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Looks like
@EE
have accidentally cached authenticated content as part of their iPhone 14 preorder process, leaking customer details (name and number) on the public pre-order page (including my own).
This is a major breach of UK GDPR.
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@official_gumjoe
@geofftech
Thameslink:
- Class 700s
- Brighton to Cambridge
- Automatic Train Operation in the core
WHAT ISN'T THERE TO LOVEEEE!
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@HarryBurr_
@Enroute_CIC
"we understand that it is within the rights of Merseyrail under their own byelaws not to accept e-tickets tickets (sic)"
What analysis has determined this?
Merseyrail's byelaws have no bearing on the fact that the NRCoT must be adhered to as MR is a signatory of these through
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@BMLBod
I've got an old Brighton Line timetable and info booklet from May 1985 in a cupboard with this beauty on it.
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@john_seto
Yep, any device connected to a network, even in emergency calls only, should receive it.
One of my devices had no SIM at all and still received the alert.
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