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BBC Crowdsources 3G Coverage Map

Posted by timothy on from the but-how-does-qwghlm-stack-up? dept.

judgecorp writes "The BBC is asking Android users to install an app which will upload information about 3G and 2G coverage, in order to build up a map showing where Britain has signal. The company behind the app, Epitiro, previously worked with the regulator Ofcom to measure 3G speed, and apparently found that O2 is slightly faster."

13 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. If this was in the US... by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 2

    I'd say that your location tracking data would be monetised and on-sold. I'm not convinced that even the BBC could be trusted tracking my every move while this app is installed.

    1. Re:If this was in the US... by Spad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they tried to do anything untoward with the data they collected, without your explicit permission, the ICO would likely hit them with rather substantial fines (I believe the current cap is £500,000 per infringement), so I wouldn't be too concerned about it. Especially when you consider that the same could be said for *any* application that has access to GPS on your phone.

    2. Re:If this was in the US... by giorgist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also note that a 168 year old newspaper was just shut down for doing something naughty

    3. Re:If this was in the US... by zebs · · Score: 2

      Hacking a dead girls voicemail and giving false hope to here parents isn't quite the same as someone tracking you walking past the local porn shop

    4. Re:If this was in the US... by digitig · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hacking a dead girls voicemail, deleting potential evidence from the mailbox and giving false hope to here parents isn't quite the same as someone tracking you walking past the local porn shop

      FTFY. It was even worse than you suggested, not to mention the alleged police bribery.

      The trouble is, Rebekah Brooks indicated that The Sun would be moving to 7-day working before the shit hit the fan, so it's quite possible that they were going to close the News of the World anyway and the closure has nothing to do with the wrongdoing, it was just a convenient scrap to throw to the attack dogs.

      --
      Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
    5. Re:If this was in the US... by c0lo · · Score: 2

      As a matter of curiosity, why do people assume that open source helps anything (regarding a situation like this)?

      Because someone (and only one would be needed) may have the curiosity to compile the source and raise hell if the binary after the compilation doesn't match the binary available for download?
      Sure, not fool-proof, but seeing the source and being able to compile tends to raise the trust level.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    6. Re:If this was in the US... by Alranor · · Score: 2

      Except that this is, by its very nature, a tracking app, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in it.

      Opening the source might tell you what data the app collects, but it's not going to tell you what the company that collects it is actually going to do with it.

  2. Sensorly by karit · · Score: 2

    Umm Sensorly already does this http://sensorly.com/ and is for whole world

    --
    http://blog.karit.geek.nz/
  3. OpenSignalMaps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    http://opensignalmaps.com does this too, android client included.

    1. Re:OpenSignalMaps by Spad · · Score: 2

      I think that's a little disingenuous; the iPlayer was pretty much single-handedly responsible for bringing streaming of broadcast TV to the UK. Whether the technology was revolutionary or not, it was still pioneering in context and has been massively successful.

  4. Dutch consumer foundation is doing the same thing by dingen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if this has something to do with what the Consumentenbond (very large & influential Dutch consumer foundation) is doing on their website slechtedekking.nl (translates as "badcoverage.nl"). They've recently launched exactly the same thing as the BBC: an Android app which tracks cellular reception for both telephone (signal strength) and data (ping and bandwith) and lets you automatically or manually upload the data to the website.

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  5. vodafone were there already by speculatrix · · Score: 2

    http://vodafoneuksignal.com/

  6. We have had it for quite some time in Sweden by sfalc · · Score: 3, Informative

    The internet registrar that manges the Swedish top lever domain, .se, has done a similar thing for a couple of years now. Crowd sourced using an app for iPhone/iPad as well as Android.
    They have a cool map where you can see mobile coverage and connection speed in Sweden. Intrestingly enough it also covers a large part of Europe, probably swedes on holiday.
    http://www.bredbandskollen.se/mobile.php