Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 April 3

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April 3

What happens physically when I upgrade to fibre broadband?

Today I switch over from DSL broadband to fibre broadband but I'm wondering what changes that actually entails on the side of the ISP? Does someone have to come out and physically change a connection or has my data always been routed through optic fibre and now the ISP just changes a value in a database which increases the throughput permitted for my connection? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.7.181.183 (talk) 08:26, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Assuming you're in the UK (as your IP says you are) then there are physical changes. You would have had ADSL which is delivered from your local exchange to you over your metallic local loop (normally copper, but possibly aluminium). When you move to 'fibre broadband' you will almost certainly be switching to VDSL which is delivered from your exchange to a local cabinet (a green box around a metre or so high) by fibre optic cable. It then comes from the cab to your property over the same metal wires that ADSL used to. This is a much shorter journey, so higher speeds are possible. So it requires physical changes (normally by Openreach) at both the exchange and the cab.--Phil Holmes (talk) 09:24, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

To add to the above, you might also be interested by our Fiber to the x article. What Phil Holmes described in FFTC (fibre to the cabinet), but FFTH (fibre to the home) is possible too. (For FFTH, someone needs to enter your premises, drill some holes etc. so you should be warned beforehand!) In France, whether FFTC could be advertised as "fibre" was a point of contention among ISPs (link (fr)): one ISP used mostly cheaper-to-install FFTC when others used FFTH, and advertising rules where unclear. From what I understand, FFTC has similar download speeds, but is more limited in upload speed (though I do not know why). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:42, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article VDSL2 can achieve download speeds of 300 MBit/s and upload of 100 MBit/s. Providers can choose to limit both to any value up to this. In the UK, BT's "fibre broadband" is limited to 100 MBit/s total, and this is split on their top-line product to 80 MBit/s down and 20 MBit/s up. That was their commercial choice and they could have split it 50/50. Note that the upstream speed is around 44 times faster than their normal ADSL product, which had an upstream speed of 448 kBit/s.--Phil Holmes (talk) 13:25, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

When I went from DSL (and SD cable TV) to FFTH (including HD TV), the Bell Canada installer had to work on my house for 6 or 7 hours. He disconnected the copper telephone cable that used to run to the utility pole behind the house, and substituted a fiber line, terminating inside the house at a device he installed called an ONT. He didn't know what this abbreviation meant but I assume it is Optical Network Terminal. Since the copper wire had been the power supply for the (traditional landline) telephone, this also meant that he needed to install a UPS (heavy enough that I presume it has a lead-acid battery) next to the ONT, drawing from our household power. Then he installed a modem (incorporating a WiFi hub) in the living room and ran a cable outside the house connecting this to the ONT. Then since my computer does not have WiFi, he ran an Ethernet cable from the modem to the wall jack near the computer where it had been connected to DSL. He placed a PVR where our old VCR was and connected it to the modem and the TV. And he reactivated the phone by running a copper cable from the ONT to the existing phone wiring inside the house. And the next day the UPS, which had not been mounted properly where it was, fell down, which disabled the whole setup until they came back to repair it. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 16:40, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

That's fibre to the home. Quite rare in the UK, where the OP lives. --Phil Holmes (talk) 17:34, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Looking for an app to track trash

I'd like to do a study of sorts. I'm wondering where and when the beer cans on the side of my road get flung out car windows. So, I'm wondering if there is an app I can put on my phone which would allow me to tag a physical location with a timestamp. Since I walk my road several times a week, I'm thinking that as I pick the cans up, and new ones appear, and I track the time and place that I see them, that it would tell me what I'm looking for. I'm not planning any vigilantism or anything. I'm mostly just curious. I'm not sure where to begin as far as keywords to search for in the Google Play store to find an app that would do this. If there even is one that would fit my needs. Note: I'm not looking for reviews. I know what the RD is for. I'm looking for information that might help me find something. Not a review of what is out there. Thanks, †dismas†|^(talk) 14:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Many smart phones add Exif data to with the GPS location and time to any picture you take, and I believe that pretty much all of them add timestamps. So it might be as easy as snapping pictures of the beer cans and later using an Exif viewer.

If the count is important to you you could leave a certain number un-picked-up and see if any disappear by your next walk. That way you could get an estimate of how often someone else is removing trash. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

If I understand, you simply wish to browse all the photos at a specific location, captured at various different times and dates. Many modern general-purpose photo album software tools make this possible.

On iOS, the Photos application (built in to the system software) can automatically sort photos by date and time; or by location; and can show you all photos from a specific location; and can show you a map-view with all photos over time, or a map view of all photos from a specific time and date. None of this requires special software or configuration.

Google Photos has similar capabilities, and is available through Google Play store for various platforms, and on the iOS App Store.

If you don't like the features of these two very popular software packages, the pages for these apps (on both the iOS App Store and Google Play store websites) also include a section that recommends "similar" apps - so they'll show you many alternatives, without requiring you to search by keyword.

You could also try keywords on the theme of geotagging or "geotracking". If you need something more specific to the act of litter-cleanup, I also found several municipalities that manage their own apps for volunteer litter reports. For example, my municipality publishes a suite of apps to help with litter and waste management. I found these by searching my city name in both of the major platform app stores. Maybe I live in a weird town, but my local government publishes multiple apps. We have apps for garbage and waste management; apps for graffiti-reporting; apps for public park and open space maintenance requests; and so on.

Nimur (talk) 20:29, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

You could look at Kobo Toolbox. It would let you make a survey form that - for example - let you input the number of items as it grabbed the time and date and location. And you could scan the beer can bar codes. We in the humanitarian community use it for things like capturing well or latrine locations and attributes in refugee camps but you could save the world with your terrific project.Hayttom (talk) 19:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you all. Guy Macon, I don't really need pics but if that helps, then that'll work. Thanks! Nimur, Guy was the one who mentioned pics. I don't necessarily need pics of beer cans filling up my phone. But the geotagging suggestion should help. Thanks! Hayttom, I just took the briefest of looks at Kobo Toolbox. This might do the trick. Not sure what all is involved in creating a report or such but I'll look at it more closely. Thanks! Again, thank you all! †dismas†|^(talk) 15:26, 6 April 2019 (UTC)