July 31, 2014
Perhaps it is because David Cameron is only able to communicate with his Cabinet by sitting on the kitchen worktop of his home in Chipping Norton, or who knows, maybe just possibly general provider goodwill: Whichever, it now seems that government is pushing for the big mobile phone providers to work together to provide better signal in remote areas by sharing their masts.
Only a few days ago, it was reported that “…Homes and businesses in England’s National Parks could be the testing ground for new mobile-connectivity technologies, in an agreement between National Parks England and the Mobile Operators Association (MOA). The duo are looking to create new ways to deliver reliable 3G or 4G to rural communities, which are often afflicted by weak mobile phone connections.
It is ironic, but logical, that remote data collection is for many, extra desirable, when the sensor is in a remote or difficult to access location but these are often pitifully short of mobile signal. If this co-operation between providers materialises it will open up opportunities for the use of GPRS based telemetry to recover your data from these remote sites. Even when telemetry is not required it is becoming more commonplace for field workers to collect data and upload it immediately to their office from the site by means of their smartphones.
We welcome this initiative which opens up time and money-saving opportunities. We already have several telemetry options and Diver DXT accepts data on an Android device. This technology is developing rapidly and we should see an increase of smartphone Apps related to data acquisition and distribution. For all this great technology, network availability is critical in remote areas and we’re delighted that this is now very much on the agenda.
Vincent van Walt
July 2014
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