BBC Android app to map UK mobile coverage

bbc.co.uk

13 points·poissonpie··9 comments

A nice idea, but two weeks in the summer seems a bit of a brief dat gathering period for this. Let it run for longer to pick up more users and data and the utility will surely be far higher?

I actually thought of this ages ago but didn't act on it. Glad someone big is doing it so this might be effective.

I am really not convinced that a taxpayer-funded body should be promoting one particular mobile brand over another. Where are the iPhone, BB and Windows apps for this?

This is difficult for the BBC - where would they draw the line about which phones should be supported? They drew similar criticism in the other direction with their iPlayer site that supported iPhone but no other manufacturer.

In this case, Rory Cellan-Jones mentioned on Twitter that there's no iPhone app because they couldn't make it work in the background. (http://twitter.com/#!/ruskin147/status/92857222861824000)

So how about not doing it at all? Where in the charter does it say the BBC should be doing anything other than TV and radio?

"a taxpayer-funded body" is not strictly accurate. Some of us don't have television sets and so don't pay the licence fee.

That is a fairly facetious argument. After all, you can avoid VAT too, just by not buying anything.

I prefer the word "accurate". I disagree with your apparent claim that any organisation which sells stuff to a large number of UK citizens is automatically a tax payer funded organisation.

If you own a TV and only watch Sky, you are required by law to pay the TV tax. What organizations were you thinking of that can compel the purchase of their product in order to consume a rival product?

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