Archive for August 20th, 2012

TfL Shelves Mobile Tracking System Project: Why is it a Setback?

As discussed on the UK blog on mobile phone tracking trackingmobile.co.uk, the announcement that the TfL is actively considering using a mobile phone tracking system brought in a lot of cheers and excitement amongst those who have been actively propagating the implementation of this system and have been quite excited about its future potentials. However, a spokeswoman later announced after the start of the Olympic Games that the TlF has decided to shelve the proposal only saying that they did not go ahead with it. The London Olympics were a major event that attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and provided a great opportunity for the administrators of the city to showcase that London is still amongst the finest cities of the world, celebrating its legacy as the  former capital of the largest empire the world has ever seen, despite a lot of setbacks over the past many years.

What speculators had expected was the introduction of a GSM based system which has been used widely by government authorities from around the world in the past. Mobile phone tracking software have been developed for basic level use in the past, however, it has also been used by intelligence agencies from around the world. A very basic level technology has also been used by animal welfare organizations and zoologists during experimentation and detecting the migratory patterns of various animals. While the idea of uses might sound very divergent, but it goes on to say that this technology has a lot of potential for growth considering its very wide scope.

At the end of the day, the implementation of this system could have had highlighted the fact that London remains one of the most advanced cities of the world and allowed experts to review the reach of the system itself. This would have helped them overcome any shortfalls and London itself could have been the first cities to establish such a system which is expected to be used widely in the future by major cities for managing their traffic problems. In fact, Beijing is already considering using such a system for better management of the traffic there, and would soon introduce a mobile surveillance system to ease congestion.

Posted by: Matt

Have mobile phones made the landline redundant?

In the last decade, mobile phone use has outstripped the use of landlines in a similar manner to email’s conquest of physical mail. However, the advantages of mobile phones over landlines are not as clear cut as one might imagine.

Mobile Benefits
The most obvious reason that mobile phones have surged ahead is their convenience. The ability to make or receive calls wherever you are, using a dedicated handset and payment plan, removes the need to wait by the phone, use expensive payphones or share a line between a whole household or business.

Other benefits of mobiles tend to come in the form of non-vocal functions. Although some landline-based phones can process text-based communications, mobiles are streets ahead in this field. Texting is one of the most widely-used forms of communication in Britain, particularly among the under-25s, and the ability to send and receive emails and social networking communications instantly is also a huge bonus, as well as being particularly vital for those who are deaf or have other issues with standard telephones.

Landline Positives
There are still several reasons why it is useful to have a dedicated landline in your home or office. Being able to plan to calls with the appropriate materials to hand to make notes, reference previous communications, or access a calendar or clock during a call when making arrangements for meetings or deadlines are all useful arguments for having a dedicated phone line. You can also arrange to have your landline in a quiet space, something that is often sadly missing when making or taking mobile calls on the move.

In addition, fixed phone line costs are now generally very low, especially if deals that include evening and/or weekend calls are taken into account, so a landline can be a money saver for people who make lots of voice calls. Landlines are also more likely to allow free or low-cost use of numbers with special prefixes such as 0800 or 0870, allowing companies to subsidise clients’ contact with them. Companies who utilize a business phone service have reported lower business costs than those who didn’t.

Because landlines are not usually accessible 24/7 in the same way as mobiles, they can free you from some of the tension that many people have of being “on call” all day, every day. Answering machines for landlines are usually relatively inexpensive and can be customized in terms of allowing various types of messages or callbacks. They are also very reliable, because they are not dependent on your service provider forwarding messages.

In short, landlines are by no means redundant; rather, they have become useful for specialist tasks for which mobile phones are not so effective and for those occasions when economy is more important than ubiquity.

Posted by: Matt