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…

Have a read of this:

Some 55 per cent of 950 people questioned said they did not want Transport for London to go ahead with the programme, which was announced by Mayor Boris Johnson last week.

Of the opponents, 48 per cent cited concerns about privacy, including the potential for other passengers to see sensitive data over their shoulder. A further 31 per cent said they were worried that increased use of smartphones and laptops on the tube network would encourage thieves, and 14 per cent said it would make journeys more stressful.

via Londoners ‘oppose tube WiFi plans’ – Telegraph.

Clearly, the folk doing the survey spoke to a bunch of heathens.

Concerns about privacy? Privacy? That’s a stupid one. Ultra stupid. Privacy? Really?

Oh please. If that’s a valid concern, then we should rip out WiFi from every railway station in London. We should descend upon McDonalds and rip out every WiFi transmitter in every one of their restaurants. Yeah. No. Ridiculous.

And what’s this about ‘encouraging thieves’? Oh come on. People are ALREADY using their devices on the Underground. It’s just a flipping arse that you can’t actually *do* anything meaningful with them.

Just how many people are going to get more stressed by the introduction of WiFi on the Tube? 14% people actually specified that as a concern?

Presumably these are the same people who are worried about going on holiday to ‘somewhere foreign’ and are concerned about the possibility of the sky falling down.

O2 from December 1st have enabled mobile connectivity on the underground tube system in Glasgow, Scotland.

That’s right, you can’t even hide on the tube anymore. Anyone, anywhere can now find you and see if you’re unhappy with your long distance calls or whether Scania can come and fit a chair lift for you – despite the fact you live in a bungalow.

Marking this auspicious occasion, eight O2 ‘Angels’ are wandering around Glasgow giving away 2000 tickets for the tube system. This presumably is for people to really try and test out this new addition to their portfolio, although there’s no mention if they’re targeting their own customers. We assume they would be, seeing as it’s no real worth to anyone else unless they give them free O2 mobiles too.

It’s been noted that 2G and 3G services are available, SMS, MMS and even video calling. And also internet browsing is possible. Hurrah!

Coincidentally this marks the start of the busiest shopping month of the year, in apparently the second largest retail commerce state outside of London.

If this pressure will be anything to go by, perhaps this could all be a trial run for the London underground on a normal working week. If this all works to plan, we could hopefully see this in the big smoke sometime soon. Who knows, only O2 does.

We‘ve come up with an alternative though to all this.

Why not just flood the London underground system with WIFI, have someone come up with a lite VoIP client that will work on all WIFI phones and that’s that.

Well, it’s food for thought anyway. Eh, Skype *cough*