Hacker News Reader

Comment by tasogare | Hacker News Reader

Those are country development and political choice issues. Last time I took the train (this weekend) it provided a free wifi access all long and I hadn't any cut. I can't remember last time I took a subway and hadn't 4G connectivity. Oh, actually I do, it was in Paris but I wouldn't dare using my iPhone there anyway. There technology is there but Western governments at all administrative levels are more busy bullying their citizens than providing comfort options like East-Asian administrations and companies are.

View on HN

>[..] but Western governments at all administrative levels are more busy bullying their citizens than providing comfort options like East-Asian administrations and companies are.

I love complaining about the lack of effiency in the EU and the West as much as the next person. But you're comparing the West's "bullying" with a region in the world that consists of quite a few harsh dictatorships that do lot worse than bullying. I take a sketchy phone signal on a train over systemic human rights "bullying" any day.

That buildings shield reception is not a political issue but a physical limitation. When I'm in my super market I know that I will not have reception in the back, same in the underground part of my fitness center.

Apparently it's not. I live in Finland and I've never had my internet connection cut off in a supermarket (or any other large building). This has happened to me sometimes in Southern Europe, though. I don't know if they boost the reception somehow in large buildings here or if the building materials are just somehow different.

It's mostly your random good luck and other people's random bad luck. A lot of building design choices can result in severe signal attenuation in microwave range, and not all buildings will have internal femtocells to cover that - or femtocells that accept your SIM.

Also, some buildings change over time in how they attenuate, especially freshly built ones where the walls are still "drying" can have close to 0 reception inside. When my parents built their current home, I had to keep an informal map of where the signal was strong enough to use GPRS (yay 7s ping in MUDs) and for voice we usually went outside.

I'm not moving to another country to get better cellphone reception. What's your point?

Their point is probably that improving the reception in your location is a political rather than technical issue. I.e. it can be solved.

In my experience, subway connectivity got markedly better when the city hosted the Olympics and spent time/money attracting tourists. This was in line with more open wifi access or sim card availability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com