On Wednesday, Transport for London will roll out 4G on the eastern half of the Jubilee Line, specifically between Canning Town and Westminster. This means you should be able to make calls, get online and scroll your Twitter feed even when you’re stuck in a tunnel.
Currently, trying to use your mobile while you’re on the tube is a rather sad affair. Although most tube stations offer free WiFi courtesy of Virgin Media, you can only connect to the internet for about 30 seconds before disappearing into an internet-free tunnel, and making a call anywhere on the underground is entirely out of the question.
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Rolling out 4G on the line should fix this. As long as you’re a customer of one of the major mobile operators – EE, Three, O2 and Vodafone – you should be able to use your phone as usual in these new underground hot-spots.
This Jubilee line roll-out only covers a small patch of the underground, but TfL is aiming to bring 4G to the entirety of the line by the end for the year, and hopes to bring 4G to more of the underground in 2021. The capital is lagging behind major cities when it comes to this connectivity update, as transport in New York, Berlin, and Paris already provide 4G for city commuters.
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But it seems that there have been a few bumps in the road in the 4G installation. Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at TfL, has previously commented that “the London Underground network is an incredibly challenging environment in which to deliver technological improvements.”
Along with extended coverage in the tube tunnels, ticket halls and corridors along the Jubilee line should also be getting a little connectivity boost, apart from the areas around London Bridge and Waterloo.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
