Won't be able to use the excuse with your Pommy bosses anymore, "I'm about to go through a tunnel, shshshsh, beep, beep, beep."
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London Underground to Gain Full Mobile Phone Coverage by 2024
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Aircon first before signal - it's dangerously hot in summer with people sandwiched up against each other.
EDIT: Aircon coming in 2025!!? Prioritise tfl!
EDIT: Aircon coming in 2025!!? Prioritise tfl!
Not often but there could be times when it could make a huge difference. It is one more option to have.
I gather it is to do with the number of bends in the oldest underground railway system in the world, twinned with how a mobile phone signal travels.
I completely get your frustration and wouldn't normally jump to TFL's defence but Aircon on the deep lines is a huge technical problem. The tunnels are very narrow, deep, have no real modern ventilation to speak off and lots of stops which means trains sit with the doors open for probably more time than they are running - there has to be some sort of heat exchange but where does the heat go? Over the years there's been a couple of open design competitions to solve it. The first (back with Ken Livingstone) had no result and second was won by cleverly using groundwater but apparently there's lots of places where there's not enough groundwater available and so it turned out it can only really be used at Victoria etc. I think they're now having to go with a piecemeal approach - different ideas on different lines etc which makes it really tricky to do.
Mind you with full coverage at least now everyone will able to post online just how hot they are in real time so that might speed the whole aircon thing up
Madrid has had coverage and AC for years. Now London can add AC, clean the red line stations and eliminate the deafening noise to finally become a normal metro. Well, at least it doesn’t smell like piss like it does in NYC 🤷🏻♂️.
London Underground passengers will be able to get mobile coverage across the rail network by the end of 2024, it has been announced.
In a press release, Transport for London (TfL) said the capital's Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road and Bank stations would be among the first fully connected stations by the end of the year, followed by Tottenham Court Road, Euston, and Camden Town by the end of 2022.
Mobile reception was introduced on the eastern half of the Jubilee line in March last year. TfL says the additional infrastructure will support 5G as well as 4G, but that it will be the responsibility of mobile operators to offer support for the fastest network speeds.
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who was re-elected last month, said in a statement:
TfL is partnering with BAI Communications (BAI), a global provider of 4G and 5G connected infrastructure, to plug so-called coverage "not-spots" in the underground network. The over 1,242 miles of fibre cabling installed in London Underground tunnels will also benefit above-ground coverage for buildings and other infrastructure by allowing more mobile transmitters to be installed.
Article Link: London Underground to Gain Full Mobile Phone Coverage by 2024
Network-wide subway system cellphone coverage?! Welcome to 2010!
Snark aside: a buddy of mine is an engineer who works on the Underground and I know they battle a lot of legacy challenges due to the age of the system, so I’m sure it was no mean feat. Congrats!
Snark aside: a buddy of mine is an engineer who works on the Underground and I know they battle a lot of legacy challenges due to the age of the system, so I’m sure it was no mean feat. Congrats!
They can't just install air conditioning on the deep tube lines because of physics. There is nowhere for the heat to go, and all you'd achieve is to heat up the tunnels even more. Before you can cool the trains you have to find a way to cool the tunnels.
The subsurface lines (Circle, District, Metropolitan, etc) already have A/C.
Yeah what does Apple have to do with mobile phones?!?
Apple sell phones in the UK. People in London (which is in the UK...incase you didn't know) with an iPhone will be able to use this network.
See how it connects together?
I got a text message from Three a couple of hours ago. They're doing network improvements in my area. I know at least three people with iPhones that'll be affected.
GET IT ON THE FRONT PAGE!
Perhaps the editors of this US-centric site have overestimated the significance of this 'news'... but it is only tangentially related to Apple in the same way a new layout on the guardian's mobile website would be - it isn't like it is bringing exclusive features to Apple Devices or enabling the use of something already built in (like, say, a mmWave trial would or something).
London Underground - began operation 1863 (158 years ago)
Singapore MRT - began operation 1987 (33 years ago)
One of these is more likely to have been designed with the ability to host mobile phone infrastructure from the outset. The newest parts of the Underground (built since the 1990s) do already have coverage.
Yes. It is true. But on the other hand, we only pay £5.50 for a one way ticket in Zone 1. And you only have to wait for 4 trains to pass before being able to get on. hahahahaha (nervous laugh, it's a rip off)
The infrastructure is old because your keep it old! For some reason, you think that old = quaint. Anywhere else in the world, infrastructure is upgraded.
Because replacing tunnels in a city of 9 million is a really easy thing to do...
The Underground is constantly getting upgraded. Approximately £1.8 billion is spent on upgrades and maintenance each year (not including entirely new infrastructure like the Elizabeth line).
Having spent a lot of time riding both the New York Subway and the London Underground, I can tell you that it's pretty obvious which feels better maintained and has received more upgrades over the years!
Current Zone 1 anytime fare is £2.40.
Overcrowding used to be a problem but it's actually been really good for the past year or so. You can often even get a seat now days, even at rush hour!
About bloody time innit. Some poor countries have had this for more than a decade now.
In NYC, our subways mostly go through tunnels and we've had a/c on all trains for decades now. The heat from the trains does make stations extra hot in the Summer though. For awhile, we even piloted an air conditioned platform which fought the heat coming from the tunnel, the train and the station itself. You could probably have mined 30 bitcoin a month from the energy usage. lol
We have wifi and cellular/data reception at stations but it falls off in between stations when riding--which I like.
It helps not to wait 150 years.
On the Circle Line, correct. And it only costs £ 30,000 per square metre to live close to it.
The NYC Subway lines are all what we'd call in London "Subsurface lines". They run just below street level, in fairly large tunnels. Some of London's lines are like this too, and we have AC on those.
But about 2/3 of the Tube network is what are called "deep tube" lines. These are much deeper below the ground (up to 50 meters in places) and in narrow, bored tunnels that leave very little clearance between the trains and the tunnel walls. It's on these lines that air conditioning is very difficult to install.
The types of tunnels each system predominantly uses are in no way comparable.
Great - but if I had a choice between Air Con / any circulation of air... I'd invest in that
London Underground passengers will be able to get mobile coverage across the rail network by the end of 2024, it has been announced.
In a press release, Transport for London (TfL) said the capital's Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road and Bank stations would be among the first fully connected stations by the end of the year, followed by Tottenham Court Road, Euston, and Camden Town by the end of 2022.
Mobile reception was introduced on the eastern half of the Jubilee line in March last year. TfL says the additional infrastructure will support 5G as well as 4G, but that it will be the responsibility of mobile operators to offer support for the fastest network speeds.
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who was re-elected last month, said in a statement:
TfL is partnering with BAI Communications (BAI), a global provider of 4G and 5G connected infrastructure, to plug so-called coverage "not-spots" in the underground network. The over 1,242 miles of fibre cabling installed in London Underground tunnels will also benefit above-ground coverage for buildings and other infrastructure by allowing more mobile transmitters to be installed.
Article Link: London Underground to Gain Full Mobile Phone Coverage by 2024