UK Slow broadband? You won't be able to switch providers to speed up your Wi-Fi anytime soon

[Tedster]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even when something has to be done at the street level at the cabinet?

Or an engineer needs to install the new modem/router because the client can't be trusted to do it?

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Tedster said:

Or an engineer needs to install the new modem/router because the client can't be trusted to do it?

Ah. EE in this case trust me not to screw up router installation so they just said here’s the router. 

[Tedster]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Ah. EE in this case trust me not to screw up router installation so they just said here’s the router. 

But that's you, a power user, my friend!

[DarthEoin]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Even when something has to be done at the street level at the cabinet?

BT bought the exclusive rights to building network infrastructure but when more network companies wanted to build it The government had to split BT into BT and open reach The latter of which is the sole infrastructure provider and that’s nothing is done at the box apart  from essential  maintenance, repairs and upgrades.(this also means you are stuck with the same speed no matter what provider you choose)

[AlTech]

Just now, Tedster said:

But that's you, a power user, my friend!

Aka they’re too lazy to send engineers so instead they send the routers and pray to Jesus you know how to use it.

 

Before this situation they didn’t send engineers to install routers anyways.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, DarthEoin said:

BT bought the exclusive rights to building network infrastructure but when more network companies wanted to build it The government had to split BT into BT and open reach The latter of which is the sole infrastructure provider and that’s nothing is done at the box apart  from essential  maintenance, repairs and upgrades.(this also means you are stuck with the same speed no matter what provider you choose)

What does that mean for me?

[DarthEoin]

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

What does that mean for me?

We don’t switch at cabinet level normally just your router

[CarlBar]

9 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

What happens to people who were already scheduled to switch?

 

Depends if they need to come into your house. If they do your on hold till furthr notice. otherwise continue as normal. If you'd checked the link to the new article in the OP....

[mr moose]

15 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

Also please, for the love of everything, stop calling it "Wi-Fi". ARGH! Perpetuating stupid is stupid, journalists suck.

 

15 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

This reminds me of naive journalists and tech bloggers when they say "ATM Machine" or "HBM2 memory". 

 

11 hours ago, Tedster said:

(Apologies, I can't get spoilers to work...)

picture of "wifi cable"

 

 

 

This is how language evolves,  common usage defines legitimacy not semantics.    when someone refers to the internet as "the wifi" you know what they mean because it is common usage.  Give it a few years and it will be in the oxford dictionary as a "common term meaning" if not straight up defined that way.

 

An example is moonshine,  the first definition of moonshine in the oxford dictionary is an  American liqueur.  not the light reflected of the moon, which is the root of where the name moonshine came from in the first place.  Give it another 100 years and wifi will probably be the single definition of interconnected networks and not the wireless technology that it got it's name from.

 

 

 

 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

when someone refers to the internet as "the wifi" you know what they mean because it is common usage

No what I know is they are being an idiot and nobody has bothered to correct them allowing the stupid to perpetuate, monkey see monkey does not make right. Makes zero difference if I or anyone else knows what they mean it's usage is wrong by the definition and meaning of the word and also the technical meaning, it's wrong. Nothing will change it to right.

 

I'll strangle anyone with my FM radio cable if they say otherwise.

 

Edit:

And Oxford will never accept it, ever. No way.

Quote

Wi‑Fi is a trademark of the non-profit Wi-Fi Alliance, which restricts the use of the term Wi-Fi Certified to products that successfully complete interoperability certification testing.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

No what I know is they are being an idiot and nobody has bothered to correct them allowing the stupid to perpetuate, monkey see monkey does not make right. Makes zero difference if I or anyone else knows what they mean it's usage is wrong by the definition and meaning of the word and also the technical meaning, it's wrong. Nothing will change it to right.

 

I'll strangle anyone with my FM radio cable if they say otherwise.

 

Edit:

And Oxford will never accept it, ever. No way.

It doesn't matter how stupid it is, you still know what they mean though, and so does everyone else which is why it will evolve and become included.  

 

The example: Oxford does not list moonshine as being the light reflected from the moon, it instead only refers to it as whiskey and silly talk.

 

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/moonshine

 

Pretty funny when you consider that the whiskey got it's name from the fact it was transported under moonshine.   The dictionary doesn't even list the original word just the new meaning given it.

 

 

 

 

[leadeater]

49 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It doesn't matter how stupid it is, you still know what they mean though, and so does everyone else which is why it will evolve and become included.  

Well it won't because it's a trademark name and secondarily other similar examples are not that similar as they are examples of words that have multiple different, unrelated meanings. Moonshine the drink and moonshine are unrelated in meaning and context used gives it such. Oxford is not going to do what is actually a much different thing, take a word that has a specific meaning and change it to collide with existing words like 'internet'. Wifi and Internet will not co-exist in the Oxford dictionary with the same defining meaning, it's not a change they will make.

 

Urban dictionary sure, Oxford no.

 

49 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The example: Oxford does not list moonshine as being the light reflected from the moon, it instead only refers to it as whiskey and silly talk.

Because moonshine, the shine of the moon is not a proper word, so not in the dictionary. Is it not obvious that such a word used like that is grammatically incorrect and a nonexistent word for it.

 

So instead of learning from our mistakes and just generally learning more to acquire more knowledge to better ourselves lets just change the definitions of words so we don't feel or look stupid, great idea. May as well drop all languages from schooling as what we pickup during our general day to day lives is good enough. Burn the books! Especially the dictionaries, we don't need them!

 

Edit:

And yea am taking the piss, everyone who refers to Wifi as internet, or LAN, or anything else is either ill-informed and needs to be taught or is willfully ignorant and thus should have no influence at all. 

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well it won't because it's a trademark name

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/wi-fitm

it already is.

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

and secondarily other similar examples are not that similar as they are examples of words that have multiple different, unrelated meanings. Moonshine the drink and moonshine are unrelated in meaning and context used gives it such. Oxford is not going to do what is actually a much different thing, take a word that has a specific meaning and change it to collide with exiting words like 'internet'. Wifi and Internet will not co-exist in the Oxford dictionary with the same defining meaning, it's not a change they will make.

 

Urban dictionary sure, Oxford no.

 

Because moonshine, the shine of the moon is not a proper word, so not in the dictionary. Is it not obvious that such a word used like that is grammatically incorrect and a nonexistent word for it.

 

The oxford dictionary basis its inclusions on common usage.  They have included the word "google" which is trademarked, as a verb (link below).  Common usage of the word "moonshine" was to describe home made whiskey therefore it got entered into the dictionary.  Oxford don't consider which words should be entered based their own opinions of the words but almost solely on the usage in society.  

 

 

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/google

 

Also moonshine is in other dictionaries, in fact the merriam-webster's first definition is "moonlight".  So clearly a proper word.

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moonshine

 

 

 

 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/wi-fitm

it already is.

That's actually a learning aid for non-English speakers, not actually the OED. There's lots of useful things in that you need to know which aren't actually in dictionaries etc.

 

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Also moonshine is in other dictionaries, in fact the merriam-webster's first definition is "moonlight".  So clearly a proper word.

That is a referral to the correct word. Moonshine, shine of the moon is not proper. Notice the lack of synonyms and example sentences that use it?

 

But you keep missing the important part, it's a trademark. You know what doesn't go in dictionaries? I'll give you a hint, look up Apple.

[mr moose]

44 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's actually a learning aid for non-English speakers, not actually the OED. There's lots of useful things in that you need to know which aren't actually in dictionaries etc.

Its also in the Cambridge dictionary

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wi-fi

Quote

That is a referral to the correct word. Moonshine, shine of the moon is not proper. Notice the lack of synonyms and example sentences that use it?

 

It's not a referral, it clearly says definition of moonshine:

 

 

Quote

 

moonshine

noun

 

Save Word

To save this word, you'll need to log in.

Log In

 

 

moon·shine | \ ˈmün-ˌshīn

\

Definition of moonshine

 

1 : moonlight

2 : empty talk : nonsense

3 : intoxicating liquor especially : illegally distilled corn whiskey

 

 

 

Like it or not that is a proper word.

 

Quote

But you keep missing the important part, it's a trademark. You know what doesn't go in dictionaries? I'll give you a hint, look up Apple.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/google

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/windows

 

 

plenty of trademarked words in the dictionaries.

 

It even has google as both the name which is trademarked and the verb:

 

 

Quote

 

google

verb [ I or T ]

 

uk

 

/ˈɡuː.ɡəl/ us/ˈɡuː.ɡəl/

 

B2

to search for something on the internet using the Google search engine (= computer program that finds information)

 

 

 

I really don't know what the issue is, the fact is words get added to the dictionary when they get used in common discourse.  It has always been like that and no one really cares if the word is bastardized or proper, once everyone uses it it become part of the language.

 

EDIT: just wanted to add that moonshine in the collins dictionary also says it is moonlight and has a graph of usage where it has been in use for almost 200 years before homemade whiskey was called moonshine.

 

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/moonshine

 

[Jarsky]

21 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

why can I remember the name when you add on a word that exists in an abbreviation. It is some silly English word I can't think of.

it not just journalists everyone does it.

It's RAS (Redundant Acronym Syndrome). These journalists would probably call it RAS Syndrome. 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

It's RAS (Redundant Acronym Syndrome). These journalists would probably call it RAS Syndrome. 

I've been calling them IC circuits since the mid 80's.   Back then I knew it was wrong but I still did it because for some reason when I just said IC by itself not everyone understood what they were.  That's when I realized language is a lot more than semantics, it's communication at different levels, and unless the people you are speaking to are equally educated then the acronyms become barriers.   Semantics are important in situations that require precise language like law or technical/science papers, but in communication with the public they need to be as laymen as possible without losing the accuracy (not always easy).

 

For the love of everything good in the world I will never understand why journalists do though.   They are supposed to be the professionals of written communication yet frequently opt for the less insightful sentence structure.

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

For the love of everything good in the world I will never understand why journalists do though.   They are supposed to be the professionals of written communication yet frequently opt for the less insightful sentence structure.

But these are the same journalists making articles like this claiming you can't switch ISPs, when you can.

I've seen plenty of reports of Virgin Media still hooking up new customers and migrations between ISPs on the BT network that do not require an engineer in the home (which is most cases) are still being done.

The only problem is new BT telephone line installations or switching from copper to REAL FTTP.