IanD

The review is definite that THM don't have band 20 and have poorer rural coverage than EE (or 1p Mobile), EE use this low-frequency band because it has very long reach from a mast, which can be a long way apart in the countryside. THM are not the only MVNO to be in this position, and like the others they keep very quiet about it -- and this had been confirmed by users who have dug into this. For the best rural coverage EE or 1pMobile or Spusu or IQmobile (all with the same coverage as EE) are better options. Your personal experience doesn't contradict this, unless you use THM and have confirmed band 20 reception -- which would prove the review was wrong.

So provide some proof -- the SIMSherpa review was definite about this, no 800MHz (band 20) coverage... 😉

Not according to the link I posted above, it says they're the same as Lyca (no Band 20). https://www.simsherpa.com/networks/talk-home-mobile/review-and-guide "Talk Home aren’t as slick as joining EE directly. You don’t get WiFi calling or VoLTE and your SIM won’t connect to EE’s Band 20 4G transmitters, which will affect coverage in rural areas and capacity in urban areas."

Lyca and Talk Home don't offer all the EE bands, especially the 4G one (band 20) used in rural areas, so coverage may be poorer "out in the sticks". https://www.simsherpa.com/networks/ee/virtual-providers-on-ee "Lyca don’t have access to the band 20 frequencies of EE’s network that provide 4G in rural areas and boost urban capacity. So 4G is worse in some areas than on EE, which is worrying as 3G is being switched off."

If you want to use all three at the same time you obviously need a third SIM. Or swap the one from the MiFi into the router.

I know Nigel wanted to retire and sell off Shire Cruisers as a going concern -- were there any takers? If they shut up shop in Sowerby Bridge it could be a body blow for the Rochdale, no hire boats there any more... 😞

The trouble is that it *wouldn't* be perfectly easy, and certainly not cheap... 😞 You have to not only identify the bike but the rider, just like prosecuting/fining a car driver for a driving offence. This works for cars because drivers are licensed and cars are sold/registered/insured with drivers and have visible numberplates -- how would this work for ebikes/escooters without a *massive* amount of bureaucracy (DVLA on steroids) as well as law changes to control the sale/registration of both bikes and riders? It's easy to say "something must be done" and "it can be fixed easily", but coming up with a workable scheme is *much* harder, and maybe impossible in reality -- which is why politicians aren't interested, they have easier and more important things to do like stuffing their own pockets with taxpayer money... 😞

The problem is still how to detect infringements and then enforce the rules -- the escooter/ebike problem is endemic just like traffic offences by car drivers, and almost all the detection (speed/lights) for these is done by (lots of) ANPR cameras not (scarce) bobbies on the beat, because cars have nice big visible numberplates and their owners are on record so can easily be tracked down and fined. This is impossible with escooters/ebikes on pavements/towpaths never mind roads, because they don't have numberplates and nobody knows who owns them -- and there are no expensive cameras to snap them anyway, even if these could somehow recognise the livery of Deliveroo or whoever then how do you prove which rider/bike it was? The only way to fix this would be to have enforcement of licensing/numberplates for ebikes and escooters like cars, which is simply never going to happen -- apart from the practicalities, who would pay for it, and how do you control their sale? Bad behaviour by their riders is an increasing problem, but any way to stop this has to be workable in real life -- and so far nobody's come up with one... 😞

Unless you're moored in a good signal area and/or the router is near a window you're likely to need external aerials, definitely so if you want to move around the canals and have reasonable reception -- steel boxes like narrowboats are not good for mobile reception inside. Three have worse coverage out in the sticks (meaning, many canals) than EE do, which will make your reception problem worse if you move around lots. But if you only care about where you are right now and Three works there with the router inside, you'll be OK -- suck it and see is the only way to find out... 😉

How are the H&S concerns any different for towpaths than pavements and footpaths where fast (and often illegal) ebikes/escooters are also ridden illegally, and have hit and killed pedestrians? Regulation is useless without enforcement, and I don't see that there's a damn thing that CART can do about it, given that elsewhere the police force can't keep them under control either, and they have far more powers and staff than CART do... 😞

Utter BS -- anyone green or not analysing ICE vs. EVs is perfectly well aware of the carbon debt involved in battery manufacture, and also that reduced emissions when driving mean this is paid back in not many years, which means that over the lifetime of the EV total CO2 emissions including manufacture and disposal are around 3x-5x lower than ICE depending on the assumptions made (e.g. renewable energy mix). That is "the whole picture". Loads of analysis from loads of sources on the web explaining this, I suggest you go and do some reading... 😉

Not allowed on the canals, obviously...

The water level at the T&M summit was fine when I went through it the week before... If the culprit was vandals, putting the locks back on would help -- I assume they were the usual handcuff key ones?

Not convinced signs make much difference given truck driver stupidity -- our road has width restrictions at the far end to stop trucks using it as a cut-through to the industrial estate, and big signs warning of this at the road entrance including "Width restriction 2.0m" and "No access to industrial estate" and "No HGVs" (and "No Heavy Goods Vehicles"!). All this still doesn't stop artics regularly driving down it and getting stuck and causing a total jam... 😞

I suspect the hire companies were hammered by Covid and then the slow business return afterwards, which meant they put their prices up, which discouraged people from booking boating holidays, so fewer boats were hired, so the prices went up -- and the increasing number of stoppages in the past few years can't have helped either, once you've booked a fixed-date holiday with a planned route it can be difficult to change when you find out just beforehand that you can't do it. This could well be a death spiral for a lot of the financially weaker hire companies, as well as those who are quitting/selling up due to retirement. Anyone know what's happening to Shire Cruisers in Sowerby Bridge?

Another emergency stoppage, it's all CART's fault for wasting all their money on blue signs and comms systems for Standedge... 😉

Not what I said, so I don't see how you can agree -- and I notice you carefully avoided my question... 😉

Given that the HNC was reopened on the cheap and it's now 25 years old and hasn't been properly maintained due to lack of money -- like the rest of the system -- how do you think any heavyweights could have done any better? Especially given the tiny number of boats who use it, so it's well down any "fix it first" priority list compared to canals with 20x more traffic? The Rochdale has pretty much the same problem for the same reasons, which is why both canals keep having so many closures... 😞

Without knowing *why* the super duper comms system was installed you can't say the money would have been better spent on maintaining paddles -- what if they'd have had to close the tunnel part or all of the time if they hadn't upgraded it, for example because Network Rail refuse to allow them to keep driving quad bikes through the maintenance tunnel? It's easy to blame an organisation -- especially CART, in some people's opinion -- for doing something when you don't know *why* they did it... 😉