Posted by Martin Orr on
Tuesday, 23 January 2007 at 19:44
I lost my phone on Friday. I have done my best to find it but not succeeded, so I will now buy a new one. I have no interest in having fancy features in my phone: my main consideration is price (basically the cheapest I can find, certainly less than £40 including £10 credit), and having decent ergonomics. If anyone knows anything about this end of the market, your comments will be very welcome. Do you think looking on Ebay is a good idea?
Looking at networks (note: I use my phone very little, so definitely pay as you go and we may assume I will not be taking advantage of any offers which depend on using a certain amount), it seems that 10p/text is standard everywhere except O2, where it is 12p. Calls are generally 30p or 35p a minute, except for T-mobile, where it is 12p a minute: does anyone have any idea why that is, or have I misread something? Given how often I use my phone, the difference between 12p and 35p is worth at most £3-£4 per year to me, and I imagine that after a year they will have changed their rates anyway.
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Martin
Tags
phone
Posted by Martin Orr on
Friday, 17 February 2006 at 13:50
IP stands for the Internet Protocol, the system by which data on the Internet finds its destination. Every computer or other device connected to the Internet is given an IP address, a series of numbers which identify where the computer is. Whenever a message (called a packet) is sent from one computer to another, it is given to the IP system along with the address it has to be sent to, then passed from one router to another until it arrives. An important point is that IP doesn't care what is in the packet - that is determined by other systems, and it could be a part of an email, a Web page, a downloaded file or an action in an online game.
The Internet is not by any means the only system that needs to pass data between many different devices: for example the telephone network is a far older and almost completely separate system; on a much smaller scale, the different alarms in a building security system need to talk to each other. This is where the versatility of IP which I mentioned above comes into play: by using the existing IP network, people setting up a new communication system avoid needing their own cables and having to design a routing mechanism. You may have heard of VOIP (Voice-over-IP) which sends telephone calls through IP packets across the Internet. And one surprising place where IP is taking over is in controlling the heating systems in large buildings.
This isn't really what I sat down and intended to write, but hopefully it is helpful in explaining what IP is, and why you may hear people get excited about it.
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Martin
Tags
internet, phone, techexplain