26 August 2011Last updated at 15:49 ETBy Torin DouglasMedia Correspondent, BBC News
Google chairman Eric Schmidt has said education in Britain is holding back the country's chances of success in the digital media economy.
He made his comments at the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Dr Schmidt said the UK needed to reignite children's passion for science, engineering and maths.
And he announced a partnership with the UK's National Film and TV School, to help train young online film-makers.
Dr Schmidt told the audience of broadcasters and producers that Britain had invented many items but were no longer the world's leading exponents in these fields.
He said: "If I may be so impolite, your track record isn't great.
"The UK is home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV. You invented computers in both concept and practice.
"It's not widely known, but the world's first office computer was built in 1951 by Lyons' chain of tea shops. Yet today, none of the world's leading exponents in these fields are from the UK."
Television transformed
He said he had been flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools, despite what he called the "fabulous initiative" in the 1980s when the BBC not only broadcast programmes for children about coding, but shipped over a million BBC Micro computers into schools and homes.
"Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made. That is just throwing away your great computing heritage," he said.
He said the UK needed to bring art and science back together, as it had in the "glory days of the Victorian era" when Lewis Carroll wrote one of the classic fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, and was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford.
Dr Schmidt said the internet was transforming television, even though people still spent much more time with TV than the web.
Money shared
The TV and the internet screens were converging, he said, and a social layer was being added to TV shows through Twitter and chat forums.
He denied claims by Rupert Murdoch and others that Google was a parasite, taking billions of pounds in advertising without investing in content - saying that last year it shared $6bn worldwide with its publishing partners including newspapers and broadcasters.
He also said Google was a friend, not a foe, of television.
"Trust me - if you gave people at Google free rein to produce TV you'd end up with a lot of bad sci-fi," he said.
He also reassured television bosses over copyright violations, saying Google could take down sites from its search system within four hours if there were problems.
Dr Schmidt is the first non-broadcaster to give the landmark lecture, which is dedicated to the memory of actor and producer James MacTaggart.
It has previously been delivered by some of the most prominent names in broadcasting including Jeremy Paxman, Mark Thompson, and Rupert Murdoch and his son James.
The number of court cases brought by people who say they have been defamed online has more than doubled in a year, experts have said.
Internet-related libel cases in England and Wales rose from seven to 16 in the year ending 31 May, legal information firm Sweet and Maxwell said.
The total number of defamation cases brought to court rose from 83 to 86.
The increase has been linked to a rise in the use of social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Barrister Korieh Duodu, a media specialist with law firm Addleshaw Goddard, said much of what appeared online was written by people who did not check facts in the way that media organisations do.
But he also warned the trend of journalists using social media sites as news sources increased the risk of defamatory information appearing in national news stories.
"People who find themselves damaged on social media sites can often find it time-consuming and difficult to have the offending material removed, because many platform providers do not accept responsibility for their users' content," he said.
"Such is the speed at which information travels through social networks that one unchecked comment can spread into the mainstream media within minutes, which can cause irreparable damage to the subject who has been wronged."
Mr Duodu said those who provide user-generated content on the internet should be held more accountable for what they write, through stricter regulation.
Copper theft is a growing problem for the communication network in Northern Ireland, British Telelcom has said.
In recent weeks, stolen cables have caused disruption to phone lines in south Tyrone and in Banbridge copper cable was cut at 16 junction boxes.
Also in the last few days cabling has been stolen from poles along a number of roads in Londonderry.
BT's head of security has travelled to NI to meet the PSNI to discuss the use of new technology to combat the crime.
"Copper is contained within our cables and has a value, however the amount within our cables is not significant," said Luke Beeson.
"It negatively affects everyone who relies on access to phones and broadband, disrupting local businesses and isolating vulnerable people."
BT have established a Metal Theft Taskforce which will work with police forces throughout the UK to try to tackle the thefts.
"We're doing a lot of work with the metal recycling industry and scrap metal dealers to try and choke the market for stolen metal," Mr Beeson said.
"It is a key priority to make sure ill-gotten gain cannot be sold."
The company will also be introducing SmartWater to its Northern Ireland infrastructure.
"It is a forensically traceable invisible liquid which we are applying to our cables so offenders are running the risk of being tagged with this solution which can link them back to the scene of the crime," said Mr Beeson.
The marking liquid is unique to a particular location.
It is used to mark the outer shell and inner core of BT cable, tools and other equipment. It will mean anyone who steals the cable will carry evidence on their skin and clothing
There have been three convictions for cable theft in the UK using this technology.
26 August 2011Last updated at 05:21 ETBy Jason PalmerScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Teddington
An atomic clock at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has the best long-term accuracy of any in the world, research has found.
Studies of the clock's performance, to be published in the journal Metrologia, show it is nearly twice as accurate as previously thought.
The clock would lose or gain less than a second in some 138 million years.
The UK is among the handful of nations providing a "standard second" that keeps the world on time.
However, the international race for higher accuracy is always on, meaning the record may not stand for long.
The NPL's CsF2 clock is a "caesium fountain" atomic clock, in which the "ticking" is provided by the measurement of the energy required to change a property of caesium atoms known as "spin".
By international definition, it is the electromagnetic waves required to accomplish this "spin flip" that are measured; when 9,192,631,770 peaks and troughs of these waves go by, one standard second passes.
Matching colours
Inside the clock, caesium atoms are gathered into bunches of 100 million or so, and passed through a cavity where they are exposed to these electromagnetic waves.
The colour, or frequency, is adjusted until the spins are seen to flip - then the researchers know the waves are at the right frequency to define the second.
The NPL-CsF2 clock provides an "atomic pendulum" against which the UK's and the world's clocks can be compared, ensuring they are all ticking at the same time.
That correction is done at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in the outskirts of Paris, which collates definitions of seconds from six "primary frequency standards" - CsF2 in the UK, two in France, and one each in the US, Germany and Japan.
For those six high-precision atomic pendulums, absolute accuracy is a tireless pursuit.
At the last count in 2010, the UK's atomic clock was on a par with the best of them in terms of long-term accuracy: to about one part in 2,500,000,000,000,000.
But the measurements carried out by the NPL's Krzysztof Szymaniec and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University in the US have nearly doubled the accuracy.
The second's strictest definition requires that the measurements are made in conditions that Dr Szymaniec said were impossible actually to achieve in the laboratory.
"The frequency we measure is not necessarily the one prescribed by the definition of a second, which requires that all the external fields and 'perturbations' would be removed," he explained to BBC News.
"In many cases we can't remove these perturbations; but we can measure them precisely, we can assess them, and introduce corrections for them."
The team's latest work addressed the errors in the measurement brought about by the "microwave cavity" that the atoms pass through (the waves used to flip spins are not so far in frequency from the ones that flip water molecules in food, heating them in a microwave oven).
A fuller understanding of how the waves are distributed within it boosted the measurement's accuracy, as did a more detailed treatment of what happens to the measurement when the millions of caesium atoms collide.
Without touching a thing, the team boosted the known accuracy of the machine to one part in 4,300,000,000,000,000.
But as Dr Szymaniec said, the achievement is not just about international bragging rights; better standards lead to better technology.
"Nowadays definitions for electrical units are based on accurate frequency measurements, so it's vital for the UK as an economy to maintain a set of standards, a set of procedures, that underpin technical development," he said.
"The fact that we can develop the most accurate standard has quite measurable economic implications."
25 August 2011Last updated at 16:27 ET
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Apple shares have fallen in New York following the resignation of chief executive and co-founder Steve Jobs.
In early trading, the shares were down 2.5% before closing down 0.66% at $373.69.
Mr Jobs, who has been on medical leave since 17 January, will stay on as Apple chairman. The new boss will be Tim Cook, formerly chief operating officer.
Analysts suggested that the share price had not fallen further as investors had confidence in Mr Cook and his team.
Talented team
"In our view, Tim [Cook] is a tough but well-regarded leader who will continue to hold Apple employees to an extremely high standard of performance," said Richard Gardner at Citigroup.
Mr Cook, 50, has already been in charge of the company's day-to-day running since January and took the helm in 2004 as Mr Jobs battled cancer and again in 2009 when Apple's co-founder received a liver transplant.
He is credited with ensuring the efficiency of the firm's supply chain and delivering Apple's industry-beating profit margins.
Terry Connelly, dean of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, said: "A company is dependent on its ability to institutionalise... genius in the corporate DNA.
"Apple shows every sign of having done that. We will see that when we see how Cook responds to competitive pressure."
'Rude health'
Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner, said there was no reason for investors to panic.
"Apple will do just fine," he said. "There are so many talented people there, and Steve's attention to detail is baked into the culture."
Brand research company Millward Brown said the Apple brand should remain unaffected.
"[Steve Jobs] has left the Apple brand in rude health so that the company is still poised for future growth," said Millward Brown director Peter Walshe.
He added that Mr Jobs had left Apple with a clear direction ahead, a successor in place, and a unique "creative", "fun" and "adventurous" brand behind him.
Looking ahead, Ben Wood, research director at technology analysts CCS Insight said Tim Cook had a huge pair of shoes to fill, adding: "Steve Jobs has been a tremendous leader but no man is bigger than the company itself."
'Roadmap intact'
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Earlier this month, Apple was briefly the world's most valuable by market capitalisation, overtaking oil company Exxon Mobil.
In his resignation letter, Mr Jobs said: "I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role."
The company has some big products on the horizon such as the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3.
"Steve is [still] going to be able to provide the input he would do as a chief executive," said Colin Gillis at BGC Financial.
"But Tim has been de facto chief executive for some time and the company has been hugely successful. The vision and the roadmap is intact."
Stephen Fry, a long time admirer of Mr Jobs, told BBC News, "I don't think there is another human being on the planet who has been more influential in the last 30 years on the way culture has developed."
"If I had said that 10 years ago you'd have thought I was completely insane."
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One former employee, Dan Crow, who worked at Apple for four years, said staff at the firm would be feeling "very sad" and a "sense of loss".
But he said the firm had "a whole suite of people who will replace most, if not all, of what Steve brought to the company".
Mr Cook's well-regarded team includes marketing chief Philip Schiller, design overseer Jonathan Ive, and Scott Forstall, who supervises the iPhone software.
Steve Jobs was famous for his charismatic presentation of new products, dressed in his trademark turtle neck and jeans.
Marketing chief Philip Schiller has fronted some recent presentations in Mr Jobs' absence and he may continue to do so, rather than new chief executive Tim Cook, the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones says.
The government and police have not sought any new powers to shut social networks, the Home Office said after a meeting with industry representatives.
Instead they held "constructive" talks aimed at preventing violence being plotted online through existing co-operation, the Home Office said.
The meeting with representatives from Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry was held in the wake of English city riots.
The prime minister has said police may need extra powers to curb their use.
Networks such as Blackberry Messenger - a service which allows free-of-charge real-time messages - were said to have enabled looters to organise their movements during the riots, as well as inciting violence in some cases.
Criminal behaviour
Following Thursday's meeting, a Home Office spokeswoman said: "The home secretary, along with the Culture Secretary and Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne, has held a constructive meeting with Acpo (the Association of Chief Police Officers), the police and representatives from the social media industry.
"The discussions looked at how law enforcement and the networks can build on the existing relationships and co-operation to prevent the networks being used for criminal behaviour.
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Nick Clegg: ''We are not going to become like Iran or China. We are not going to suddenly start cutting people off''
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"The government did not seek any additional powers to close down social media networks."
Dispelling rumours
Prime Minister David Cameron has also said the government would look at limiting access to such services during any future disorder.
A Twitter spokeswoman said after the meeting that it was "always interested in exploring how we can make Twitter even more helpful and relevant during times of critical need".
She added: "We've heard from many that Twitter is an effective way to distribute crucial updates and dispel rumours in times of crisis or emergency."
A Facebook spokesperson said: "We welcome the fact that this was a dialogue about working together to keep people safe rather than about imposing new restrictions on internet services."
The company said it had highlighted the role Facebook played during the riots, such as people staying in contact and organising the clean-up.
"There is no place for illegal activity on Facebook and we take firm action against those who breach our rules."
A spokesman for Blackberry maker Research In Motion said the meeting was "positive and productive".
The company said: "We were pleased to consult on the use of social media to engage and communicate during times of emergency. RIM continues to maintain an open and positive dialogue with the UK authorities and continues to operate within the context of UK regulations."
A number of people have appeared in court in recent weeks for organising or attempting to organise disorder on social networks.
Jordan Blackshaw, 21, from Marston, Cheshire, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, from Warrington, Cheshire, were jailed for four years for online incitement.
Blackshaw had created a Facebook event entitled "Smash Down Northwich Town" while Sutcliffe-Keenan set up a Facebook page called "Let's Have a Riot in Latchford". Both have said they will appeal.
Meanwhile, 21-year-old David Glyn Jones, from Bangor, north Wales, was jailed for four months after telling friends "Let's start Bangor riots" in a post that appeared on Facebook for 20 minutes.
And Johnny Melfah, 16, from Droitwich, Worcestershire, became the first juvenile to have his anonymity lifted in a riot-related case for inciting thefts and criminal damage on the site. He will be sentenced next month.
Plotting violence
In the aftermath of the riots, which spread across England's towns and cities two weeks ago, Mr Cameron said the government might look at disconnecting some online and telecommunications services if similar circumstances arose in the future.
"We are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality," he told MPs during an emergency session of Parliament.
Tim Godwin, the Met police's acting commissioner, also said last week that he considered requesting authority to switch off Twitter during the riots.
However, he conceded that the legality of such a move was "very questionable" and that the service was a valuable intelligence asset.
The newspaper found the timing of the messages posted "questioned the assumption" that Twitter was used to incite the violence in advance of it breaking out in Tottenham on 6 August.
Currently, communications networks that operate in the UK can be compelled to hand over individuals' personal messages if police are able to show that they relate to criminal behaviour.
The rules gathering such queries are outlined in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).
Apple founder Steve Jobs has resigned as chief executive of the technology giant and will be replaced by its chief operating officer Tim Cook.
Mr Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant following pancreatic cancer, said he could no longer meet his chief executive's duties and expectations.
The Silicon Valley legend will become chairman of the firm.
The 55-year-old has been on medical leave for an undisclosed condition since 17 January.
In a short letter to the board of Apple, Mr Jobs wrote: "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's chief executive, I would be the first to let you know.
"Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as chief executive of Apple.
"I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.
This is a sad day for Apple and for the whole technology industry, as its most charismatic and successful leader of recent years brings down the curtain on an extraordinary career.
Steve Jobs addressed his brief letter of resignation not just to his company's board but to the Apple community - and millions worldwide will feel he was talking to them.
Forceful bosses whose personalities shape everything about their businesses are going out of fashion these days, for good reason many would say.
But Steve Jobs is a rare example of a chief executive who is synonymous with his company, a perfectionist who obsesses over every detail and has been the public face of just about every major product launch in the past decade.
It's difficult to imagine Apple without him - but he's leaving having revived what was an ailing business when he returned in the late 1990s, and turned it into the world's wealthiest company and one which has done more than any other in recent years to shape consumer technology.
"I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you."
Apple board member Art Levinson paid tribute to Mr Job's contribution to the company: "Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position the world's most innovative and valuable technology company."
'Hugely successful'
Analysts said the move was not unexpected, and would have little impact on the day-to-day running of the company.
"Steve is [still] going to be able to provide the input he would do as a chief executive," said Colin Gillis at BGC Financial.
"But Tim has been de facto chief executive for some time and the company has been hugely successful. The vision and the roadmap is intact."
Nor will customers see any real difference, analysts said.
"At the end of the day, consumers don't buy products from Apple because they're from Steve Jobs, they buy them because they meet their needs and they're good products, and they'll continue to do that," Michael Gartenberg from Gartner told the BBC.
However, Apple shares slid in after-hours trading, suggesting that some investors were less confident of the company's prospects without Mr Jobs at the helm.
Mr Jobs is widely seen as the creative force that has driven Apple to become one of the world's biggest companies.
Thanks to innovative and hugely popular products such as the iPod, the iPhone and more recently the iPad, Apple has become one of the most sought after brands in the world.
In the three months to the end of June, the company made a profit of $7.3bn on revenues of $28.6bn. It sold more than 20 million iPhones in the period and 9.25 million iPads.
Revolutionary products
Mr Jobs started Apple in the 1970s and its Macintosh computers became hugely popular in the 1980s.
In 1985, Mr Jobs left the company after falling out with colleagues, only to return in 1996 and begin Apple's transformation by launching the colourful iMac computer.
The iPod, which revolutionised the personal music-player market and spawned myriad copycat devices, was launched in 2002 and lay the foundations for the company's success over the past decade.
Next came the iPhone, which similarly revolutionised the smartphone market, while the iPad confounded some initial scepticism to prove hugely popular.
Many versions of these products have been launched while Mr Jobs has been on medical leave, and new versions that have been planned for months will not be affected by his departure, analysts said.
"In the near term, at least the next two three years, Apple will continue to have a fantastic run because it's got its entire roadmap in place which will continue to work seamlessly," Manoj Menon at Frost and Sullivan told the BBC.
Internet giant Google has agreed to pay a $500m (�306m) fine for publishing online adverts from Canadian pharmacies selling illegal drugs to US customers.
By paying the fine, Google will avoid criminal prosecution in the US for profiting from the adverts.
The $500m represents the firm's revenues from the adverts and the revenues generated from the sale of the drugs, federal investigators said.
Google said it should it not have allowed the adverts.
"We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the US by Canadian pharmacies some time ago," the company said in a short statement.
"However, it's obvious with hindsight that we should not have allowed these ads on Google in the first place."
The US Justice Department said controls over selling the drugs were inadequate.
"While Canada has its own regulatory rules for prescription drugs, Canadian pharmacies that ship prescription drugs to US residents are not subject to Canadian regulatory authority, and many sell drugs obtained from countries other than Canada which lack adequate pharmacy regulations," the department said.
It added that the higher price of the drugs reflected the fact that some could be bought without a doctor's prescription.
Samsung has been banned from selling three models of its Galaxy smartphones in a number of European countries.
The preliminary injunction was handed down by a court in the Netherlands after Apple filed a claim for patent infringement.
It claimed that Samsung had copied technology owned by Apple relating to the way photos are displayed on mobile devices.
The embargo is due to come into effect in seven weeks.
A district court in the Hague upheld Apple's claim concerning one specific patent - EP 2059868 - which outlines an interface for viewing and navigating photographs on a touchscreen phone.
However, the judge rejected several other patent issues, as well as Apple's claim that Samsung had stolen many of its design ideas.
Despite the impending embargo, Samsung welcomed the ruling. In a statement, the company said: "Today's ruling is an affirmation that the Galaxy range of products is innovative and distinctive.
"With regard to the single infringement cited in the ruling, we will take all possible measures including legal action to ensure that there is no disruption in the availability of our Galaxy smartphones to Dutch consumers."
The statement continued: "This ruling is not expected to affect sales in other European markets."
23 August 2011Last updated at 22:18 ETBy Jane WakefieldTechnology reporter
A BBC crowd-sourcing survey into the state of mobile Britain suggests that 3G has some way to go before it offers comprehensive coverage across the UK.
Despite operator claims of 90% or more 3G coverage, there are still many notspots, including in major towns and cities, according to the map.
Those testers able to receive a data connection only got a 3G signal 75% of the time.
For nearly a quarter of the time they had to rely on older 2G technology.
2G is typically around ten times slower than 3G "mobile broadband".
Mobile coverage has become a huge issue as people rely increasingly on their smartphones to surf the web and send email as well as making phone calls.
Last month the BBC invited people to download an app that would collate the 3G coverage their Android handsets were getting.
The experiment aimed to offer a snapshot of coverage.
Industry first
44,600 volunteers took part, providing testing firm Epitiro with some 1.7 million hours worth of data from around the UK.
"The BBC has undertaken a crowd-sourcing survey that is well beyond any scale seen by the mobile industry in this country or any other," said Gavin John, chief executive of Epitiro.
"Over 44,000 volunteers from the Shetland Islands to the Isles of Scilly participated with 42 million locations tested from every county in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."
"For the first time consumers have the means to see 3G coverage precisely where they live, work and travel," he added.
Operators too were broadly pleased by the initiative.
O2 said it "welcomed the crowd sourcing experiment", but added that more detail - for example signal quality - would have been useful.
"The issue of coverage is no longer about covering the land mass to meet a percentage target, but about depth and quality of experience," said an O2 spokesman.
"The results don't show the 'experience' on each network - for example, speed or the ability to hold a connection. Simply having coverage does not guarantee a good service."
Everything Everywhere - the parent company of Orange and T-Mobile - said it "was a step in the right direction" for offering consumers transparent information about coverage.
"It is a little too early to tell how much it tallies with our own maps or how we would use the information," said James Hattam, director of service management at Everything Everywhere.
Three was concerned that the picture painted by the map was driven as much by the number of people from each operator taking part as by actual coverage.
"Three has the UK's largest 3G network, but as a newer operator with fewer customers, is necessarily less well represented on this map at a local level," said Phil Sheppard, director of network strategy at Three UK.
If our 3G survey has shown anything it's this - for many thousands of people the quality of their mobile phone signal is of great importance and they are thirsty for more information.
What's striking is that while overall coverage is pretty good, it's still far more patchy than the maps provided by the mobile operators would suggest.
My own experience this week shows that in the centre of a major city, on a major inter-city rail route, in a village in rural Oxfordshire, you cannot rely on getting a good 3G signal.
We know the mobile networks - and Ofcom - will be studying the map with interest. With the 4G auction coming up next year, the challenge for the mobile industry and the regulator is to show that they can improve speeds across the network while ensuring that those people who are in notspots now are not left even further behind in the future
The results suggest that the performance of different operators varies enormously from region to region.
Windsor Holden, an analyst with Juniper Research, homed in on West Sussex.
"There are substantial differences in Chichester where, for example, O2 has poor coverage to the west while Vodafone has issues in the east," said Mr Holden.
"There is probably a correlation to their base station configurations. When these networks were rolled out there was not the attention paid to planning and so networks aren't as efficient as they should be."
The map underlines the need for people signing up to mobile broadband to research coverage in their local area, according to Michael Phillips of Broadbandchoices.co.uk.
He warned that the quality of 3G data services across the UK still varied widely.
"Mobile broadband swings between where fixed broadband was from 1998 to 2003, but many people are expecting the same speeds for their smartphones as they get at home," he said.
"The reality is that 3G is a good service in major cities but it is failing to deliver on trains and in the countryside."
Among the worst places for mobile coverage are the UK's road and rail networks.
"A whole stretch of the A3 has little or no coverage and there are substantial blackspots when people are travelling," said Juniper Research's Windsor Holden.
"Mobile's key advantage is that you should be able to use it anytime and anywhere and that is not the case at the moment. There is no reason why coverage could not be improved in these areas," he said.
Train journey
The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones took a train from Cardiff to London to test the quality of service for commuters.
The government has recently offered a cash injection to boost the roll-out of next-generation fixed broadband in rural areas.
Ofcom's Communications Consumer Panel last month called for a similar strategy to tackle mobile notspots.
It recommended that the upcoming 4G mobile auction should be used as an opportunity to upgrade the UK's mobile infrastructure.
"Effective mobile communication is essential, and we need intervention to improve services. The decision by tens of thousands of people to take part in the survey demonstrates how significant coverage is to people's everyday lives," said panel member Colin Browne.
Next steps
It is important to note that the BBC's map is a crowd sourced snapshot of coverage rather than a scientific test.
Measuring mobile coverage is complex and the signal that someone receives depends on a number of factors, including whether they are indoors or outdoors, what time of day they are using the phone and what handset they have.
Drive-by tests conducted by Ofcom in Devon recently revealed that often feature phones were a better option for those wanting to just make a phone call in rural areas.
A total of 270 models or variants of smartphones and tablets variants were used in the BBC study, including six varieties of HTC handset and Samsung's popular Galaxy handsets.
The data collected is by far the most comprehensive to date, although it is not the only experiment of its kind.
Opensignalmaps offers a similar service. It has been collecting coverage data since December 2010.
Its 30,000 users have mapped 10 million locations. Their results suggest that 3G is only available 48% of the time.
Opensignalmaps has pinpointed North Humberside as the area with the worst coverage - a total of 75 notspots.
"Looking at our map most of the big cities are well served by 3G, but it's clear that 3G coverage is still a massive issue anywhere outside major cities," said map creator Brendon Gill.
Comparing operators has been difficult for consumers up to now because they all measure their networks in different ways.
O2 thinks that projects such as the BBC's map might offer a better answer.
"We would like to see these types of initiatives shape the future of customer experience measurement," said a spokesman.
Everything Everywhere's James Hattam said he hoped Ofcom would develop the map further.
"If the sample size was increased and Ofcom took it on then it could be a really useful tool in the industry," he said.
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