Cell broadcast name

In Australia, channel 50 is used for the “cell broadcast” information for mobile phone networks. Most often this contains the suburb or locality of the current base station the phone is talking to.

I enabled this on my new phone, and it works ok for GSM.

I’ve just been speaking to Optus technical support who told me that their 3G network doesnt’ support this feature. A bit odd, as you’d think 3G would have more features, not less. The guy didn’t know if there was some other way to retrieve the same kind of information.

One problem that I did discover is that every time the phone receives notification that it has changed base stations, it wakes up from standby mode.

That’s probably why I was woken up at 2am this morning wondering who had left the light on - turns out it was my phone. Amazing how bright a backlit display can be in the middle of the night :-(

I’ve contacted HTC in Australia and asked them to find out if this is a bug or a feature. I’m certain my old phone didn’t do this, so I consider it the latter.

I’ve also emailed our local Australian mobile device MVP Nick Randolph to see if he has any suggestions.

The old and the new

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of my old HP rw6828 and my new HTC TyTN II.

|   | HP iPAQ rw6828 | HTC TyTN II | | — | — | — | | Processor | Intel® PXA270 Processor 416MHz | Qualcomm® MSM 7200, 400MHz | | Operating System | Windows Mobile 5.0 | Windows Mobile® 6 Professional | | Memory | 45MB available for persistent user storage 64MB SDRAM for running applications | ROM: 256MB RAM: 128MB SDRAM | | Dimension | 102mm (L) x 58mm (W) x 19.5mm (D) | 112 mm (L) X 59 mm (W) X 19 mm (D) | | Weight | 140g | 190g with battery | | Display | 56 x 56mm (2.205 x 2.205 inches) transflective TFT QVGA color, 240 x 240 pixels,0.24mm dot pitch, 64K-color support, portrait and landscape support with touch screen | 2.8 inch, 240 X 320 QVGA TFT-LCD display with adjustable angle and backlight | | Network | GSM, GPRS, EDGE | HSDPA/UMTS: Tri-band 850, 1900, 2100 MHz HSDPA: Up to 384kbps for upload and 3.6Mbps for download UMTS: Up to 384kbps for upload and download GSM/GPRS/EDGE: Quad-band 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz (The device will operate on frequencies available from the cellular network) | | Device Control |   | Finger scrolling and panning 5-Way navigation control | | Keyboard | None | Slide-out QWERTY keyboard | | Connectivity | Class II device; up to 4 dBm transmit, typical 10 meter range (approximately 33 feet) - High-speed, low-power, short-range wireless communication with other Bluetooth devices Serial IrDA SIR, data transfer up to 115.2 Kb per second, USB 1.1 Client - support via HP standard mini-USB cable 802.11b (WEP and WPA) | Bluetooth® 2.0 Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g (WEP, WPA, WPA2) HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB and audio jack in one) GPS antenna connector | | Camera | Built-in UXVGA 1.3MP with LED light, 1280 x 1024 resolution, JPEG and 3GP format, support for still image, and video playback, H.263 | Main camera: 3 megapixel CMOS color camera with auto focus Second camera: VGA CMOS color camera | | Audio | Integrated microphone, receiver, speaker and one 2.5mm stereo headphone jack, MP3 stereo (through headphone jack) Handsfree speakerphone | Built-in microphone and speaker | | Ringtone formats | Simple MIDI Type 0, WMA, WAV, MP3, polyphonic MIDI |

• MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
• 40 polyphonic and standard MIDI format 0 and 1(SMF)/SP MIDI

• Up to 350 hours for UMTS
• Up to 365 hours for GSM

Talk time:

• Up to 264 minutes for UMTS
• Up to 420 minutes for GSM
• Up to 120 minutes for video call

Interesting things I’ve noticed so far:

• While the new phone uses the “ExtUSB” port to connect the headset (meaning it should never get stuck), this does mean you can’t charge or dock the device and listen on the headset at the same time.
• The HTC device happily continues to play audio even when it loses the phone signal - my HP had this annoying “feature” that most times when I was travelling on a train through a tunnel, it would pause Media Player.
• There’s no volume control on the headset. Fortunately the headset does seem much more comfortable and clearer than the HP one.
• The HTC memory card seems a lot faster to access.

Daylight Saving in South Australia

In most states and territories of Australia, we have daylight saving. While there probably aren’t as many benefits for those living in the northern areas of the continent, I quite like it.

Next year, South Australia’s daylight saving will end on Sunday 6 April at 3am. This is a change from the previous rule of the last Sunday in March, but it brings us into line with NSW, Victoria, ACT and Tasmania, which is probably a good idea.

Microsoft have been busy releasing time zone updates this year, particularly with changes in some US states and also Western Australia.

The latest revision includes updates for Australia, including Central Australian Standard Time, Australia Eastern Standard Time and Tasmania Standard Time. Updates for various operating systems are linked from the KB article.