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Stewart Clark

4:36 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Berlin has managed it; perhaps TFL should give them a call.

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Gordon394

4:39 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@Stewart Clark - I don't how how deep the Berlin underground lies, but that's the major problem with regards London. Personally they should just enable data anyhow - reduces cost and irritation ;)

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joose

4:59 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Personally, I don't want telephone calls on the underground. It's one of the main reasons I bought my Archos for my train to work journeys, I can't stand the moronic coversations the great unwash feel fit to share with everybody within earshot, hence I listen to music while I read.

I also don't want mobile calls on planes etc! ;)

While I'm moaning, what's with the muppets with their 15" laptop's who get on at my stop, just manage to get Window's loaded up before they have to switch off, 20 minutes later at the main station. Read a book, look out the window, whatever. Just stop the mindless faffing that shows how unimportant you really are in the world..

@Gordon - I do agree with you though, enabling data would be useful to most with out the noise irritation.

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Kevsta

5:16 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@joose - you beat me to it, and I agree I don't want to listen to all people shouting down the phone. Makes an already unpleasant commute worse.

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iain coghill

5:57 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Some years ago there was a proposal to block mobile signals from tube trains even when overground. Oh happy days :)

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Gordon394

6:11 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@Kevsta - I do say that in the article ;)

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Isaac Sarayiah

6:35 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Thankfully there will be no phone calls on the Tube. Whoever thought this was a good idea in the first place needs to be shot. What a waste of money doing the feasibility trial.

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Gordon394

6:41 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@Isaac - as with Kevstra, I refer you to the final paragraph of my article: feasibility into data access is both worthwhile and useful.

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John McLean

6:43 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Surely it can't be that prohibitively expensive to fit a small transmitter in each station? That way your SMS and e-mails (inbound and outbound) would just queue up and be delivered every couple of minutes when you stopped at a station. Okay it wouldn't work for voice calls, but frankly I'd rather be spared the annoyance of (a) standing next to some irritating Loadsamoney shouting into his iPhone / Blackberry; or (b) being on the other end of a phone call from someone in the Tube - I can't imagine it being very pleasant with all the background noise of screeching wheels etc.

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lifethroughalens

6:52 PM on 16 March, 2009

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Are you kidding? Great news, I say keep them free of phones...it's a God-send to be able to escape underground.

It's nice in theory, wide, air conditioned tunnels and carriages well insulated against noise and brake dust (Mexico City & HK are great), perhaps a gentle tune playing in the background soothing your stress levels from a hard day. 'I know I'll call the wife to say hello...'

In practice, you must know how noisy London rolling stock is in those tiny tunnels. In the summer when all the windows are open and it's 40 degrees down there and your face is somewhere between someones armpit and the glass of the door, a thousand copies of 'Metro' littering the floor, the last thing you need is a phone call to deal with!

I must be a tech philistine because I don't want them on planes either.

:)

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Gordon394

6:57 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@John McLean @lifethroughalens - ditto my article point and previous posts about Data Only.

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joose

7:54 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@Gordon - I'm sure nobody here is unaware of what it actually said in your article, it's just that it's an emotive subject and we all want a bit of a moan about it anyway lol.

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Alexa08

8:15 PM on 16 March, 2009

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lol @ the subtitle change.

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Gordon394

8:31 PM on 16 March, 2009

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@joose - fair play ;)

@Alex - wasn't ideal for SEO really!

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GoldenGuy

11:09 PM on 16 March, 2009

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I'm sorry but wasn't Brown trading off the Obama directive of building a new base for employment during the recession, through investment in comms and technological advancement? I would have thought this would be the perfect opportunity to push that agenda, given that he's trying to redeem the current dismal status of The City, and sex up its transport in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Then again, I guess the old cry of "Job creation! Job creation!" is as tired and insincere as "I need to spend more time with the family."

Damn. Ever since I read that story, I've been looking forward to ending my boredom on the Victoria Line, with a bit of 'rail-surfing'.

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Stewart Clark

8:56 AM on 17 March, 2009

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Gordon, depth of tunnel has no baring, once your underground the signals won't penetrate. In reality I do not care becuase I avoid the London tubes beacause they are hot, noisy and over crowded.

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Geoff Richards

9:16 AM on 17 March, 2009

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Stewart - I imagine the technique involves piping the signal *along* the tunnels via repeater stations, not attempting to penetrate the ground (which as you say, wouldn't work).

Of course, as lifethroughalens suggests, it's often impossible to even have a conversation with the person sitting next to you on the Tube, nevermind someone down a phoneline. So unless all Tube trains were airconditioned, sealed & silent like Heathrow Express etc, there's no way this will work.

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John McLean

9:19 AM on 17 March, 2009

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@Stewart - rubbish! Look at New York, where the trains run just below the surface (as in you can look through grids in the road and see them in places) and you can get a solid mobile signal in many areas.

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bigman

9:23 AM on 17 March, 2009

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Most likely failed due to a combination of the cost and time to implement (they are deep tunnels with only a couple of hours access to engineers a night), length of tunnels and speed of trains requiring lots of kit and probably an unreasonable revenue share requirement from tfl being the final straw that breaks the business case.

The operators probably believe that voice traffic is saturated and that calls underground are substitions for overground calls. Data is sold unlimited so little incremental revenue there.

Needs a wifi op to put in kit and sell subscriptions separately on monthly and PAYG basis.

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critical

10:32 AM on 17 March, 2009

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With just a data link, it could actually be even worse (with VoIP) -

SORRY.. YOU'RE BREAKING UP... SAY THAT AGAIN. {...} COCKFOSTERS.

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Gordon394

11:46 AM on 17 March, 2009

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@critical - the percentage of users with VoIP however is tiny by comparison, but long term it's far more useful... ;)

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Gordon394

2:51 PM on 17 March, 2009

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@ian-in-northampton - funny thing is I was asked by my younger brother a number of years ago: "What did you do before mobile phones?" I thought for a moment then replied: "We STUCK to our plans!"

Wouldn't want to go back to a phoneless age though - maybe for a week!

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Timek

6:37 PM on 17 March, 2009

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@StewartClark - this is not true: I live in Warsaw - the 'Metro' tunnel here is fairly shallow (certainly compared to Moscow or St Petersburg) and every time you stop at a station you are able to send/receive SMSs and make calls.

What a mercy it is not to have unrestricted phone calls on the tube!

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Joe

9:57 AM on 18 March, 2009

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What's the incentive for TfL to do this? Obviously it would cost a fortune and it's not like the lack of the service at the moment stops people using the tube. Why go to all that hassle if it wouldn't generate more customers?

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Kanu

2:42 AM on 22 March, 2009

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People how gullible are you in London. Even the deepest stations of the underground systems in Oslo and Stockholm, you can get a crystal clear mobile phone signal. And no you dont pay a penny extra for it.

Why do you accept these lame excuses?

And get a subway that is open 24 hours while you are at it. Anything less is laughable for a town of 8 or 10MM people that claims to be a world city.

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