New Weather Channel App Notifies You When Cell Networks Are Down

New Weather App Can Spread Urgent Alerts Even When Cell Networks Are Down. 

The Weather Company’s new Android app uses mesh networking to spread data between phones over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. IBM, The Weather Company launch mesh-powered app for internet-poor regions.

Having a wealth of up-to-the-minute climate data at our fingertips is something most of us take for granted. Thanks to a reliable cell connection, our smartphones, and the work of hundreds of meteorologists and climatologists around the globe, keeping abreast of an incoming storm isn’t so much a matter of how, but how quickly. Unfortunately, though, that isn’t the case for everyone.

In developing countries, cellular connectivity is congested, intermittent, and in the worst cases inaccessible. That’s why IBM, in collaboration with developers at The Weather Company, introduced Mesh Network Alerts, a new technology that provides a peer-to-peer means of facilitating communications between residents of underserved nations.

Mesh Network Alerts work by linking mobile devices directly to one another, daisy-chaining handsets in a sort of node network. Using a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, each connected smartphone stores and propagates messages to devices within a 300- to 500-foot radius, creating a mesh that can effectively reach more devices. Read more

How Do Public Utilities Deal With Mobile Dead Zones?

What Does A Public Works & Utility Service Vehicles Deal With Mobile Dead Zones? 

Gas, phone, water, road & electric utility companies are more dependent than ever on mobile communications with their home office.  From scheduling appointments to ordering equipment to emergency services.  Communication is critical to solving problems quickly.  

What does a public utility truck do when they don't have service?  Can they prepare ahead of time to know if a particular service area is not going to have good cell phone service?  

It has been suggested by a public utility in California that there is a need to help their service people prepare before going into the field.  All public utility vehicles take work into the field and are heavily reliant on mobile platforms to perform that work.  Everyone knows of the dead spots so why not prepare by sharing these locations with us on a map.  Currently, most utility workers rely on local knowledge and don't have a map system for this knowledge.  

We are willing to share this information back with you for your mapping GIS solutions.  Send us your notorious dead zones and we will post the data directly to the map.  Most the public utility agencies use ESRI and our data can fit right into these mapping systems.  

Australia's Mobile Black Spot Program Has Located 6,000 Dead Zones

The Mobile Black Spot Programme is an Australian Government initiative to extend mobile phone coverage and competition in regional Australia. The programme will invest in telecommunications network infrastructure to improve coverage of high quality mobile voice and wireless broadband services and competition in the provision of these services. The Government has committed $100 million (GST exclusive) over four years to the delivery of the Mobile Black Spot Programme. The program will improve coverage along major transport routes, in small communities and in locations prone to experiencing natural disasters, as well as addressing unique mobile coverage problems.

Nominations of mobile black spot locations. From 16 December 2013 to 1 August 2014, the Department of Communications received reports of approximately 6,000 locations with poor or no mobile coverage. These locations have been included in a database which is now available as an interactive map. The database will be shared with mobile network operators and infrastructure providers to assist them in preparing funding proposals for the Mobile Black Spot Programme. The database of mobile black spot locations closed on 1 August 2014.

Some 6,000 mobile black spots (dead zones) exist across Australia, according to a recent database released by the government and compiled after submissions from the public. Victoria was the state reported to have the most nominations – 2,029 – for mobile black spots, followed by New South Wales, which had 1,780, while Queensland and Western Australia had 897 and 523, respectively. However, according to The Australian, the AUD100 million (USD92 million) set aside for its Mobile Black Spot Programme is only expected to be able to pay for the construction of between 250 and 300 new base stations. Despite this, Paul Fletcher, parliamentary secretary to the communications minister, was cited as saying that these new towers should help fill coverage gaps in multiple areas, saying: ‘It is important to understand that, although 6,000 locations have been nominated, this does not mean that there are 6,000 locations where a new base station is required.’

With mobile operators such as Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Australia expected to tap the AUD100 million government fund, the process is also reportedly expected to generate at least another AUD100 million investment from bidding parties, state governments and local councils. In terms of which locations will benefit from funding, this will be determined by a competitive selection process, with Mr Fletcher noting: ‘The final determination of the locations to receive funding will come through the competitive selection process, which is designed to allocate the funding to locations which will deliver the greatest benefit in terms of new coverage, for the public funding provided.’ This tender process will reportedly get underway this month, with a decision on successful bids expected by April 2015, ahead of new towers being rolled out in the second half of 2015.

Tell Us Where Vodafone, O2, Three, T-Mobile UK Black Spots Are

UK Black Spots Map Survey

Endemol TV producition is looking for mobile phone users in the UK who experience blackspots and deadzones.  They would like to interview people in the UK suffering from poor reception who use Vodafone, Three, O2 or T-Mobile.  Deadzones.co.uk only has about 100 poor reception areas in the map currently and could use a few more contributors.  Please add pins to the map or email us or comment below if you can help contribute to the story that Endemol is doing.  Are UK mobile phone consumers able to get out of their contracts if they experience poor reception or bad patches in areas where the mobile phone companny promises coverage?

Related Articles:
UK Black Spots
 

Mobile Blackspots Map for the UK

We are huge fans of the fact that Vodafone will start advertising femtocells.  It's impressive to see Vodafone stepping up and taking the industry lead educating consumers about the new products to consumers in the UK using the brand Sure Signal.  Vodafone's Sure Signal guarantees you a great 3G signal at home, no matter where you live, and promotes the fact it might be an emergency risk if you are living in a coverage hole.  This is something the U.S. carriers have tried their hardest to ignore.  See their promotions and website above and watch the stories of people from around the UK who have been rescued from their mobile signal problems.  I am quite proud of a carrier finally admitting that they have coverage holes and giving consumers the ability to do something about it.  Kudos to Vodafone UK!

It will remain to be seen if the U.S. carriers still want to "blow smoke" up our asses with their ridiculous commercials touting their great coverage.  AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint & T-Mobile have been dragging their feet for years "testing" femtocells in the U.S. and not educating their customers that they actually exist.  It also amazes me that Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon in the US yet it seems so against Verizon's arrogant culture to admit they actually have coverage problems with their network.  Do you think Verizon's marketing executives who came up with their moronic coverage map promotion commercials are going to be able to keep their jobs or are they going to have to do an "About-Face" (look in opposite direction) if they start selling femtocells in the U.S.?  Hmmm . . . we shall see.

As a result of Vodafone's leadership, Deadzones.co.uk has launched a new "Consumer Generated Mobile Blackspots Map" asking where mobile customers don't have problem areas indoors and outdoors.   Even if Sure Signal can solve the problem indoors at your home or office there are still many bad patch locations around the UK.  We ask for users to contribute pins in our map for 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone. Please also see this UK Blackspots Facebook discussion board we started under Vodafone's profile. 

Find this map at Deadzones.co.uk & Deadcellzones.com/uk.html