London tube phone signal plans shelved = too difficult

By on March 31, 2011 in Operators

Alas it all proved far too difficult…

Plans to build a mobile phone network on London Underground in time for the Olympic Games have been abandoned.The UK’s four mobile operators on Thursday said they had concluded it would not be possible to build the network in time for the Olympics starting next July.

via FT.com / UK – Olympic Tube phone plan dropped.

I’d have settled for mobile data access on the station platforms. That’d have been a start…

About Ewan

Ewan is Founder and Editor of Mobile Industry Review. He writes about a wide variety of industry issues and is usually active on Twitter most days. You can read more about him or reach him with these details.
View all posts by Ewan →

, , , ,

  • Anonymous

    I get mobile coverage in EVERY subway in China, 3 Carriers are supported, voice, text, data, 2g/3g all supported. I can email, texts, chat on my iPhone 3/4 2g/3g cm/cu, EVDO Rev A 3g ct. I know that the london underground is run by seperate companies but generally speaking if you can’t even mobile enable one line to allow for roaming customers from overseas for the games, its just that your too damn lazy. London Underground has long been a bastion of 14th century wonder of technology, with rats, mice, and constant breakdowns ensuring the foreign tourist they feel like they are trapped within a shell of tech-no-failure.

    MIND THE GAP/NO SIGNAL

    ps: the only upside…. no dude shouting in your ear….”I CANT HEAR YOU….WHAT DID YOU SAY? HELLO?”

  • Mike42

    “I’d have settled for mobile data access on the station platforms”

    er…isn’t that coming courtesy WiFi?

  • Mike42

    “I’d have settled for mobile data access on the station platforms”

    er…isn’t that coming courtesy WiFi?

  • http://www.mobileindustryreview.com Ewan

    In selected stations aye

  • Mike42

    All this makes offline caching of stuff you want to real all the more
    relevant. What I want is a Twitter/FB app that automatically parses
    my Twitter & FB friend streams, finds links, downloads the content and keeps
    it for maybe a day, with a rolling deletion policy so it never takes up more
    than maybe 50 or 100MB on the device. Where was I? Oh, in the land
    of reality. Sigh.

  • David

    Don’t know where you get the idea that London Underground is run by separate companies, it’s one company that is part of Transport for London. The problem almost certainly comes from the tunnels being too small – most were built 100 years ago when no one thought to make the tunnels a bit bigger to allow space for equipment that didn’t exist then; other subways learned from this.

  • http://www.ewanspence.com/blog Ewan Spence

    And we could call it “Avant Go”
    ;-)

  • http://www.ewanspence.com/blog Ewan Spence

    And we could call it “Avant Go”
    ;-)

  • http://www.ewanspence.com/blog Ewan Spence

    And we could call it “Avant Go”
    ;-)

  • http://www.ewanspence.com/blog Ewan Spence

    And we could call it “Avant Go”
    ;-)

  • http://www.mobileindustryreview.com Ewan

    Oooooh I remember AvantGo!

Switch to our mobile site