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On English canals, is a licence really necessary?


NN247

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36 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Curious they forgot to mention on that statement they no longer require boats to display licenses and say they won't take action against licenced boats not displaying a license.

 

Or have I got that wrong? 

Not much point taking action against the licensed but unpapered. But what do they do about the unnumbered ones that they can't check at all?

It'll all change back to bits of paper when the internet goes pffutt.

Edited by Arthur Marshall
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37 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Curious they forgot to mention on that statement they no longer require boats to display licenses and say they won't take action against licenced boats not displaying a license.

 

Or have I got that wrong? 

 The following is from a document  dated Feb 2020  indicating the license must be displayed

image.png.6c4b1ec3cb8ae3786c2fa62fd6fa651b.png

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/5962.pdf

 

 

I don't think ''failure to display''' is an offence in the same way  as it used to be for road vehicles. Nor should it be if a license has been purchased.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Not much point taking action against the licensed but unpapered. But what do they do about the unnumbered ones that they can't check at all?

It'll all change back to bits of paper when the internet goes pffutt.

Boats without a name and index must be something of a challenge for C&RT.

 

Records can be checked without the internet . Using a phone to call someone where records are kept for example .

What makes you so sure the internet  will go ''pffutt'' ?

.

 

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24 minutes ago, Midnight said:

That's what the CRT checker told me when he checked all the boats at the Club

As I understand it displaying the licence is a legal requirement.  When CRT unilaterally make a change in the law e.g. you have to agree to T & Cs boaters squeal but when they like the change e.g. no need to display your licence they don't make a murmur.

 

I wish they would be consistent and either accept CRT are trying to run the system was required which may occasionally require a bending/change of rules without the law or squeal about everything.

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6 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Boats without a name and index must be something of a challenge for C&RT.

 

Records can be checked without the internet . Using a phone to call someone where records are kept for example .

What makes you so sure the internet  will go ''pffutt'' ?

I'm not sure, of course. But the way modern warfare is going, wouldn't it be somewhat crippling to the Western economy and infrastructure if someone just cut the undersea cables? Not that anyone would,  obviously, any more than they'd blow up underwater gas pipelines.

But I imagine all the records are now kept in the cloud somewhere, rather than in a physical space, not that that is safe either - I remember trying to get hold of someone's old tax returns (in pre internet days) to find they'd been destroyed in a flooded basement.

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11 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I remember trying to get hold of someone's old tax returns (in pre internet days) to find they'd been destroyed in a flooded basement.

 

 

 I always thought that was code of "Buggered if I'm gonna waste an hour of my time looking for them for ya"

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I remember from bygone days working in accountancy, some traders would turn up with just a bag of oily receipts in a bin bag and their bank records.  The taxman seemed to have accepted margins for various small traders and would cut a deal as long as it was reasonable and fitted their margins. People turning up with perfect records and then properly prepared accounts sometimes ended up worse off. I expect that's no longer the case. 

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45 minutes ago, Jerra said:

As I understand it displaying the licence is a legal requirement.  When CRT unilaterally make a change in the law e.g. you have to agree to T & Cs boaters squeal but when they like the change e.g. no need to display your licence they don't make a murmur.

 

I wish they would be consistent and either accept CRT are trying to run the system was required which may occasionally require a bending/change of rules without the law or squeal about everything.

It's in the Bylaws, a requirement to show both the boats name and number on both sides of the vessel.  Also to show the current licence on both sides.

C&RT decided the paper licence was no longer required, and said so, only to be told the requirement was a legal necessary, unless the Bylaws were altered licences had to be displayed.

The whole mess is due to C&RT's attitude to the Bylaws.  The Bylaws give C&RT the power to run the waterways, in conjunction with Legal system, if only they would use them, instead of very dubious Terms Conditions.

 

Bod

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We would no doubt use the existing high capacity communication satellite links that we had before fibre optic intercontinental  cables were installed. Submarine cables are now used  for telephone conversations, but much data and television goes via  satellite. I well  remember in the 1990's that, when making transatlantic telephone calls that were being routed via satellite, you had to briefly wait after finishing speaking, or after the person you were talking to had stopped speaking, to let the person at the other end know they could reply to avoid talking over each other. An Australian colleage mentioned at the time that it was possible to make a special request to have a cable circuit when he rang home instead of a satellite one, particularly important on a UK-Australia circuit.  This problem went away once fibre optic subsea cables became widespread.

 

Although the speed at which signals pass along an optical cable is slower than the speed of light at which radio signals travel through space, the much longer transmission distance of a satellite uplink and downlink results in a significantly longer delay than a terrestrial cable link. Such delays are less important with data transmission which normally has  less need for quasi-instantaneous transmission and reception.  

Edited by Ronaldo47
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3 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

We would no doubt use the existing high capacity communication satellite links that we had before fibre optic intercontinental  cables were installed. Submarine cables are now used  for telephone conversations, but much data and television goes via  satellite. I well  remember in the 1990's that, when making transatlantic telephone calls that were being routed via satellite, you had to briefly wait after finishing speaking, or after the person you were talking to had stopped speaking, to let the person at the other end know they could reply to avoid talking over each other. An Australian colleage mentioned at the time that it was possible to make a special request to have a cable circuit when he rang home instead of a satellite one, particularly important on a UK-Australia circuit.  This problem went away once fibre optic subsea cables became widespread.

 

Although the speed at which signals pass along an optical cable is slower than the speed of light at which radio signals travel through space, the much longer transmission distance of a satellite uplink and downlink results in a significantly longer delay than a terrestrial cable link. Such delays are less important with data transmission which normally has  less need for quasi-instantaneous transmission and reception.  

The statement about delay is correct for traditional geostationary satellites but not for low-orbit ones like Starlink, especially the newer ones with laser data links between the satellites.

 

The delay to send data up to such a satellite, across the laser link, and back down to earth -- all at the speed of light -- is shorter than sending the data more slowly through the optical fibre network.

 

This is where Starlink plan to make a huge amount of money from high-frequency trading -- traders spent hundreds of millions of dollars laying a new straight-line optical cable from London to New York to save a few milliseconds, Starlink can do better than this -- and the advantage increases with distance, for example Europe or the USA to the Far East.

 

And yes I'm 100% sure this is correct, because we supply the optical modules used for the intra-satellite links 😉

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8 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I'm not sure, of course. But the way modern warfare is going, wouldn't it be somewhat crippling to the Western economy and infrastructure if someone just cut the undersea cables? Not that anyone would,  obviously, any more than they'd blow up underwater gas pipelines.

Its called the web or the net for a reason. Unlike a single pipeline you can  blow a hole in it and apart from local issues  there are still other routes 

But if the internet was seriously disrupted or destroyed then yes it would be catastrophic .

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1 hour ago, MartynG said:

Its called the web or the net for a reason. Unlike a single pipeline you can  blow a hole in it and apart from local issues  there are still other routes 

But if the internet was seriously disrupted or destroyed then yes it would be catastrophic .

 

A passable analogy would be to compare bringing down the internet to bringing down the road transport network. 

 

Yes you can destroy parts of it all over the place but alternative routes would still emerge. 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Bod said:

It's in the Bylaws, a requirement to show both the boats name and number on both sides of the vessel.  Also to show the current licence on both sides.

C&RT decided the paper licence was no longer required, and said so, only to be told the requirement was a legal necessary, unless the Bylaws were altered licences had to be displayed.

The whole mess is due to C&RT's attitude to the Bylaws.  The Bylaws give C&RT the power to run the waterways, in conjunction with Legal system, if only they would use them, instead of very dubious Terms Conditions.

 

Bod

I am aware of that, it is boaters reactions I am talking about.  CRT make some statement e.g. you can't have a licence unless you abide by the T & Cs, result mass squealing "they can't do that the law doesn't say......."  then they make anther statement e.g. you don't need to display licences, result not a murmur.

 

What is realy the case is they aren't squealing because CRT have done something the law doesn't allow, they are squealing because they think it might detrimentally affect them.

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30 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I am aware of that, it is boaters reactions I am talking about.  CRT make some statement e.g. you can't have a licence unless you abide by the T & Cs, result mass squealing "they can't do that the law doesn't say......."  then they make anther statement e.g. you don't need to display licences, result not a murmur.

 

What is realy the case is they aren't squealing because CRT have done something the law doesn't allow, they are squealing because they think it might detrimentally affect them.

Oh yes, your quite right.

The problem is C&RT don't understand the position they are in regarding their legal frame work, and are determined to undermine it by the use of dubious T&C's.

The "U" turn on the display of licences has shown the level of understanding in the Trust, the "Roving mooring permit" was another, current "Winter Mooring's" could be dubious.

The on going continuously cruising/boats with no home mooring, distance requirement, is another that could be easily and clearly understood by all, IF the Trust were to publish what it would take to "Satisfy The Board" as is the requirement of the relevant Act.  The Act gives no distance, BUT the distance could be in the "Satisfy the Board" information.  Which is in the control of the "Board" ie British Waterways/Canal and River Trust, as It became.

 

Bod

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10 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

We would no doubt use the existing high capacity communication satellite links that we had before fibre optic intercontinental  cables were installed. Submarine cables are now used  for telephone conversations, but much data and television goes via  satellite. I well  remember in the 1990's that, when making transatlantic telephone calls that were being routed via satellite, you had to briefly wait after finishing speaking, or after the person you were talking to had stopped speaking, to let the person at the other end know they could reply to avoid talking over each other. An Australian colleage mentioned at the time that it was possible to make a special request to have a cable circuit when he rang home instead of a satellite one, particularly important on a UK-Australia circuit.  This problem went away once fibre optic subsea cables became widespread.

 

Although the speed at which signals pass along an optical cable is slower than the speed of light at which radio signals travel through space, the much longer transmission distance of a satellite uplink and downlink results in a significantly longer delay than a terrestrial cable link. Such delays are less important with data transmission which normally has  less need for quasi-instantaneous transmission and reception.  

I think your about 30 years out of date there my friend 

 

The current network of submarine cables is vast and has huge bandwidths. Not sure of current figures but 15 years ago satellites were only handling 1% of international traffic and that will be less now not more. 

Edited by jonathanA
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45 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I am aware of that, it is boaters reactions I am talking about.  CRT make some statement e.g. you can't have a licence unless you abide by the T & Cs, result mass squealing "they can't do that the law doesn't say......."  then they make anther statement e.g. you don't need to display licences, result not a murmur.

 

What is realy the case is they aren't squealing because CRT have done something the law doesn't allow, they are squealing because they think it might detrimentally affect them.

That's the normal way custom changes law over time. Behaviour and pragmatism are in a  constant state of evolution, while laws are stuck in a long ago moment and take time and effort to change. Usually they just fall into disrepute and disuse until someone gets round to tidying them all up many years later.

There are probably hundreds of laws like this, only surfacing when some barrack room lawyer drags one out to make an, usually indefensible,case.  The justification is always "it's the principle of the thing", but, as you say, it is not. It depends on the confusion between what is legal and what is right, I suppose, and where you draw the line, and, of course,  who draws it.

It is also important to remember that the prime purpose of the law is the defense of property (not "justice"), and therefore that who has the most gets the most protection.

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2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

A passable analogy would be to compare bringing down the internet to bringing down the road transport network. 

 

Yes you can destroy parts of it all over the place but alternative routes would still emerge. 

And if all or most  of  the road network , or the internet,  was destroyed there would be more important  things to think about than  a canal licence.

 

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2 hours ago, jonathanA said:

I think your about 30 years out of date there my friend 

 

The current network of submarine cables is vast and has huge bandwidths. Not sure of current figures but 15 years ago satellites were only handling 1% of international traffic and that will be less now not more. 

One submarine optical cable has multiple fibers in it, each of which typically carries about 10Tb/s of traffic, and there are far more links within countries/continents. One link to a Starlink satellite carries far less than this (by orders of magnitude e.g. 100Gb/s), so even with the projected 40000+ satellites their total capacity will be a tiny fraction of the optical fiber network.

 

It's all down to bandwidth; the millimeter-wave satellite links have bandwidths measured in GHz, for optical fibers this is in THz...

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Genuine question.

 

Signals on optical fibre networks - are these encoded on a beam of light? If so, do these not travel at the speed of light. If the signal is not encoded on a beam of light, are they just electrical signals and what is the advantage use of optical fibre gives?

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1 hour ago, IanD said:

One submarine optical cable has multiple fibers in it, each of which typically carries about 10Tb/s of traffic, and there are far more links within countries/continents. One link to a Starlink satellite carries far less than this (by orders of magnitude e.g. 100Gb/s), so even with the projected 40000+ satellites their total capacity will be a tiny fraction of the optical fiber network.

 

It's all down to bandwidth; the millimeter-wave satellite links have bandwidths measured in GHz, for optical fibers this is in THz...

Exactly my point submarine systems of 320TB/s are commercially available now. 

Starlink is about using standard mobile phone handsets with LEO satellites so bandwidth will be in 10's or 100's Mb I would guess (to a handset)

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11 minutes ago, Col_T said:

Genuine question.

 

Signals on optical fibre networks - are these encoded on a beam of light? If so, do these not travel at the speed of light. If the signal is not encoded on a beam of light, are they just electrical signals and what is the advantage use of optical fibre gives?

Yes they are and they often use multiple 'colours' of light in the same fibre.

The speed of the wave in fibre or signal in anything, compared to the speed of light is known as the velocity of propagation and is smaller in fibre or indeed copper cables than in a vacuum. 

It's about 2/3 of the speed of light in a fibre cable.

 

Eta advantages include huge bandwidths and relatively low loss, which means you can send a lot of information a long way. 

Edited by jonathanA
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Fair enough, it's been more than 20 years since I was involved with that technology, and I was really only involved in the opeation of the internet network per se rather than the physical hardware.  Fibre optics can certainly handle prodigious amounts of data, and the internet developed from ARPANET, designed during the cold war as a knockout-proof military communications system which automatically routes data packets to their destination by any available route, requesting  the re-transmission of any packets that get corrupted or lost during transmission.  And now we use it for things like sending our friends videos of cute kittens. 

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Just dug out a prepared sample of a multi-strand fibre optic cable that a colleague who used to deal with that technology, gave me in the late 1990's. The outer plastic sheath is 17mm  diameter, the five coloured plastic tubes are 2.3mm diameter. Each tube contains half a dozen of the minute actual fibres that convey the information. 20221006_144006-1.jpg.5b68e2ec665c7a216ed23f232b4ecb2f.jpg

20221006_143722.jpg

Edited by Ronaldo47
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