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That's very good speeds. Haven't Virgin switched to O2 as their parter?

Not got a 5G handset yet, and just gone sim only as I'm happy with my Note10 for a while longer.

Hoping that a mobile network will be the eventual solution to my parents internet woes. They can barely get more than 1Mbps through their phone line and it's flaky as hell. Problem is they don't get mobile signal either, but you can get some big antennas to fix on your house which should make a difference.
 
5G has popped up on my iPhone 13 pro max. The only thing is I have 4G sim. Not sure how or complaining?My network is virgin mobile which is a virtual network which uses Vodafone network.

Pretty good download speeds; even happier with the upload speeds which are much faster than I get with my broadband.

Anyone else find this with their 5G handset?
I have a 5g phone just no 5g phone signal. I remember having discussions about 5g and WiMax (although apparently that was mainly a 4g competitor) but essentially its widely accepted 'wireless' networks will overtake traditional wired networks in terms of capacity. Its a infrastructures thing, you think a single Base Station can cover a square mile quite comfortably then think how much extra it requires with wired equipment and then laws of diminishing returns in terms of capacity as that get separated out. Then when equipment gets replaced for better stuff its a lot quicker and easier because you replace the stuff in one location as opposed to several.

Remote locations will always continue to have the worst problems because it isn't as profitable to get good coverage as the amount of users are less. That will also change in time as SATCOM continues to expand although predominantly is still in the stone ages in terms of its capacity but that will accelerate as the requirement increases such as passenger aircraft.
 
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5G has popped up on my iPhone 13 pro max. The only thing is I have 4G sim. Not sure how or complaining?My network is virgin mobile which is a virtual network which uses Vodafone network.

Pretty good download speeds; even happier with the upload speeds which are much faster than I get with my broadband.

Anyone else find this with their 5G handset?

Just tested mine (Pixel 6, EE in Birmingham city centre),
52.9mbps down, 34.6mbps up
Honestly a little surprised it's that low as I've got full signal 5G - though that's still significantly more than I'll ever need to use

Only get 4G, at best, at home so dread to think what that'll be like (sometimes feels it'd be faster to post a letter than send a whatsapp message)
 
I have a 5G ready phone and the few places with a good 5G connection, it's bloody quick. Got 150mbps in Birmingham New Street I think it was, which is as fast as my home Wifi.
 
I suspect I don't have full access to 5G, until I upgrade to a 5G SIM card. For a moment I thought it was due to my vaccine booster. ;).
 
Stealing these two items off the Fully Charged YouTube channel.

Actual impartial research done (rather than figures pulled out of the air) shows an electric car's net carbon footprint becomes lower than an comparable internal combustion engine car after just 7,000 miles (i.e. within a year), before becoming almost infinitely better for the environment.


And also, just to turn conventional wisdom on its head, the oil and gas producing nation of Russia, a nation that will have comparatively small negative impact to its environment from global warming (at least compared to India, China and the US, who will sink underwater to varying extents and experience horrific desertification) has a capital city where only electric buses will be purchased from now on to reinforce their already considerable electric fleet.

If even a nation that has reasonable grounds to be comparatively indifferent to climate change and a vested economic interest in the consumption of fossil fuels has reached this conclusion then it bodes well that others will follow suit.


Meanwhile my home city persists in spending literally billions digging up ancient narrow roads to install an inflexible and essentially obsolete tram line back and forth. The heart is in the right place, but the head (and wallet) are not.
 
Anyone got any recommendations for Bluetooth headphones (like actual headphones, not airpods etc - I've got some cheap ones of those that I'll replace with pixelbuds when they die)?

Had some Beats Studio 3s which were decent enough but years of taking them on/off has taken its toll and they snapped this morning
 
I've had a couple of sets of AKG on ears which are difficult to beat at their price point. If you have more to spend there's better options from the likes of Senheiser, Sony & B&O etc.
 
Anyone got any recommendations for Bluetooth headphones (like actual headphones, not airpods etc - I've got some cheap ones of those that I'll replace with pixelbuds when they die)?

Had some Beats Studio 3s which were decent enough but years of taking them on/off has taken its toll and they snapped this morning
What's your budget?

How about the Sony WH-1000XM4? Seeing as it's in the price range of your Beats Studio 3s?

 
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Any networking gurus here? Got fed up with my patchy wifi coverage using the virgin supplied router (printer keeps disconnecting in the garage etc), so looking to set-up a mesh wifi network.

Looking into things the ideal would be a tri-band, wifi6 (ax) system with 2 or 3 transmitters dotted around, but it looks like that sorta set-up will still set me back £300+ which is way too much .

There are options for a little shy of £200 which i'd be prepared to pay for a long term solution. But looks like it's a choice of either tri-band (so a dedicated 5ghz band for the transmitters to communicate with each other) OR WiFi6, not both.

Anyone have any advice on which to ditch?
 
Stealing these two items off the Fully Charged YouTube channel.

Actual impartial research done (rather than figures pulled out of the air) shows an electric car's net carbon footprint becomes lower than an comparable internal combustion engine car after just 7,000 miles (i.e. within a year), before becoming almost infinitely better for the environment.
All well and good....

But do you want to swap brownouts for electric cars?

'cos state of the national grid says your gonna have to have one or the other.
 
All well and good....

But do you want to swap brownouts for electric cars?

'cos state of the national grid says your gonna have to have one or the other.

I don't think that is accurate. At present we pay power stations to close down during off peak periods, like overnight. We also shut down turbines at off peak times. This is all massively inefficient for contraptions and buildings that have a finite lifespan. The argument being that electric cars are essentially batteries on wheels, that can be plugged in and charged overnight and reinforce the national grid during the day.

So, you can keep the power stations and turbines going through the night, filling batteries at off peak times with the lowest costing energy (until recently you could even be paid to use electricity overnight on some tariffs, to help incentivise keeping power stations open). Then during peak demand periods, the cars that are plugged in can actually feed energy back into your house and/or the grid. I believe the conservative figure is that the average car is idle for 90%+ of the time, so there is ample time when it isn't needing charged, but is available to feed modest amounts of electricity back into the grid.

Upwards of 2/3rds of cars in Norway are electric and they don't get solar power for much of the year. Yet you'll struggle to find stories about brownouts in Norway even though they have to run their cars inefficiently in wintry conditions. Of course a lot lf this requires common sense infrastructure like new build houses having domestic batteries, solar panels and heat pumps. So that's the UK gubbed then!


If you think Norway isn't a good comparison. How about the most populace country on earth? Soon over half the cars sold in China will be EVs and instead of brownouts I expect we'll only hear about how kids born 10 years ago are seeing their first blue skies in city centres (although China does have some ongoing issues with its grid I believe as its middle class booms and consumes).


Existing combustion engine manufacturers as a rule do not make good EVs or good batteries. Tesla and the Chinese build much better EVs, with much greater battery capacity so will make a greater contribution to national grids 'batteries on wheels'. You could take 10% of the energy out of their batteries at peak times and they'll still have 300 miles range left.

The area of giant battery storage units to store renewable energy for use at a later time is an area where technology is lacking, but with the rate of progress in this field and the development of all kinds of battery alternatives (e.g. non-Lithium or cobalt) I'm very confident this will be solved. There is already big bucks in renewables and EVs, and the bigger the potential profits, the more money that is thrown at research and development.

Generally I'm not an optimist for humanity, but the technology is there and getting more efficient and cost effective every day, for power supply and lower pollution levels to go hand in hand. We probably do need a couple of decades more of nuclear as part of the equation though.
 
I don't think that is accurate.

Upwards of 2/3rds of cars in Norway are electric and they don't get solar power for much of the year. Yet you'll struggle to find stories about brownouts in Norway even though they have to run their cars inefficiently in wintry conditions.

I don't think you really appreciate the vast gulf in quality of infrastructure in Norway compared to the UK.

Electric power consumption (kWh per capita)
Norway: 23,000
UK: 4,400

Around 5 times power capacity per head in their grid.


We are light years away from having the kind of reserves needed to charge electric cars in the same volume and manner as they do.
 
I don't think you really appreciate the vast gulf in quality of infrastructure in Norway compared to the UK.

Electric power consumption (kWh per capita)
Norway: 23,000
UK: 4,400

Around 5 times power capacity per head in their grid.


We are light years away from having the kind of reserves needed to charge electric cars in the same volume and manner as they do.
Thats why I mentioned China. Besides it seems Norway is far ahead of even Sweden in terms of heat pump usage, so that electricity consumption sleep reference will be largely from a combination of heating buildings and charging cars.


The UK may struggle despite it's almost unparalleled wind reserves, but that will be about 95% due political ineptitude (including non-reperesentation of Greens through an undemocratic electoral system) and 5% due to the technological challenges. Other countries are showing it is eminently possible to generate enough electricity for EVs and heat-pumps via renewable and nuclear energy. Countries whose governments are slaves to fossil fuel lobbyists will be at the back of the queue, but they will get there because economics are starting to dictate renewable energy is the most cost effective option.

Once humungous battery farm tech becomes more cost effective we'll be able to manage fluctuations in renewable energy generation and have resilience on the grid. Even the Daily Mail, closely aligned to fossil fuel lobbyists, can sometimes let reality seep through.

 
Other countries are showing it is eminently possible to generate enough electricity for EVs and heat-pumps via renewable and nuclear energy.
Don't misinterpret me - I'm definitely not saying its impossible to do.

I'm saying its impossible without a seismic shift in the UK#s electricity infrastructure.
 
They're talking about getting rid of road tax as well, which is inevitable and charging by use of road per miles instead. Electric cars atm here not being charged road tax as well as the infrastructure to charge them.
 

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