Elizabeth line: Central stations now boasting 4G phone coverage | Hacker News Reader

Elizabeth line: Central stations now boasting 4G phone coverage

ianvisits.co.uk

32 pointsedward40 comments

A related effort is the NYC MTA's 10-year project to bring cell connectivity to subway tunnels (not just stations). You can already experience this if you take the L from Manhattan to Brooklyn: you will have continuous cell connectivity from the First Ave station to the Bedford Ave station. https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-announces-universal-s...

It's not clear from the article whether the Underground is trying to add between-station cell coverage?

There is between station coverage. On the northern line I have been in-tunnel and got a solid full-signal 5g with 130mbps on speed.cloudflare.com tests for example.

My phone is dead from Kennington to Tooting Bec. Does it differ by telco provider?

This was between Camden and chalk farm IIRC. It's not fully rolled out yet.

Which provider? I don't get such speeds anywhere in London with O2

Vodafone. I've seen similar speeds, but on like the 10th floor of a building.

It might be in the tube less people are sharing the signal so there is less contention?

It's not clear to me but it sounds like it wasn't an upgrade from 3G but from wifi, and wifi was only accessible at the stations?

The Stockholm subway has had 4G since 2015, but that was replacing the 2G/3G networks.

It would be interesting to know how it works. Are there a lot of smaller base stations? Is there a station on each train that bridges traffic using some other technology that works better underground?

https://computersweden-idg-se.translate.goog/2.2683/1.611884...

Yeah there was no cellular service, and the WiFi was limited to certain providers.

They've been talking about this for decades as far as I can remember. They always resisted it because they were worried someone would use it to set off a bomb (London has quite a lot of terrorism in it's semi-recent history). I guess now they realised that suicide bombers are probably more likely than a Nokia 3310 rigged up to a detonator.

Oh, that explains why the Wi-Fi was weirdly not available to international tourists/required registration with mobile networks. I've been wondering about that every time I've been to London.

It's nothing to do with bombs, that's just a conspiracy theory.

There's some explanation here — power, space, time and cost were all issues: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2023/deep-inside-bringin...

The wifi is available if you have a British SIM from a major network, there are also locals who can't use it.

> Oh, that explains why the Wi-Fi was weirdly not available to international tourists/required registration with mobile networks.

Not really. The wifi was funded by the cellular/broadband networks as a value-add for their customers. So I was a broadband Virgin customer and could use Virgin Wifi on the Tube

I imagine there must be countless other ways to accomplish this. Seems like CYA?

London Underground tunnels are very small, so there's not much space for anything to be added. Many are lined with iron. Phone service was discussed many times in the past, but the phone companies didn't seem willing to pay what it would cost to install it.

(It's nothing to do with bombs.)

But this is Elizabeth Line. The newest additional line in London Rails opened in 2022. I expected 4G and 5g coverage from the get go. Not one and half year later.

It would have been much much more impressive if it was the Central line.

Sorry, I'm mixed up with other discussion on this post, and the article which also discusses other lines.

I'd assume the project to install 4G/5G on the Elizabeth line just overran, or would have delayed opening the railway. The wording in [1] isn't completely clear, but suggests this was supposed to happen in 2022.

[1] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-tube-undergrou...

One option for getting coverage in metro tunnels may involve deploying several Base Tranciever Stations (BTS), usually in technical rooms connected to stations. These BTSes can be from different operators. Then they are connected hub and spoke with fiber to radiation cables that stretch through the tunnel up to around 2000-ish feet, perhaps even longer nowadays. The BTSs connect to the mobile operators through their Radio Access Network.

TfL/Boldyn/telco's roll-out of mobile coverage in London across LUL and the Lizzy line has been frustratingly slow, and dates have slipped repeatedly.

There's a forum thread chronicling the project and the successive press releases as goals have been watered down: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lu-elizabeth-line-4g-up...

Proper (incl tunnels) coverage was promised "soon" after the Elizabeth Line opened. Indeed, the trains all advertised a completely pointless TfL WiFi SSID since day 1, which still doesn't work en-route because there's of course no mobile network.

This news is a good step in the right direction, but will still only work on platforms and in ticket halls.

Let's see what actually gets achieved by the end of 2024.

In a world of finite time and resources, wouldn't it be more useful to improve services on the lines themselves? The Elizabeth line had the highest rate of cancelations in the entire UK between July and September

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/elizabeth-line-can...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/08/elizabeth-li...

I love the 4G coverage on the Jubilee line, it's absolute great.

I assume the gaps in the 'end of spring' coverage between Woolwich and Custom House are under the river and the two places the train surfaces (where it wouldn't be needed)?

I know it's considered a necessity by most, but I used to relish the time I had to spend on the NYC subway precisely because there was no cell coverage and I could read a book without the strong temptation to dick around on my phone.

I travelled into London by train recently for the first time in 15 years. 95% of commuters were staring at their phones. Perhaps previously they were staring at newspapers etc. I don’t know. I don’t recall people walking and reading newspapers though. Or while driving. Or when socialising with friends. Anyways, for me it was a depressing sight. The view out of the train window wasn’t.

Yeah, but what else can you do? I stare out of the window sometimes but it gets old when you're commuting 2+ hours a day. I would find it difficult to read a book in a distracting environment like public transport, plus I have to switch between multiple trains which would tear me out of focus. Can't always get a seat either.

I know that doing random shit on my phone during my commute absolutely fries my attention span, but I don't have any solution.

Solitary thinking and reflecting, I guess.

I can do plenty of that while working ;-)

In the tube, if you stare out of the window it is just black anyway so there is nothing to even look at, plus the seats (if you are lucky to get one) face away from the windows anyway.

Tube time is great podcast time.

I would find it difficult to read a book in a distracting environment like public transport

Try it - I find that I get most engrossed in a book on the Tube. Main problem is the risk of missing your stop

There was a time not long ago when subways had those free newspapers ("Metro" etc), and people would read them (and they would clutter the place).

What's wrong with people being on their phone though? I barely use my phone, but if I'm in a tunnel and there is nowhere to look, yeah, I'll read a book, online news or email. I rarely socialize on the subway and I have one of those glances that make people uncomfortable.

Anecdotally: I just came back from London. Big fan of the new Elizabeth line. The Piccadilly (and most lines) low ceilings are a bit soul crushing (I'm tall, but I suspect for most people too), although I really like the character of the old stations.

Yeah I remember getting on "late" trains home (not even that late, like 8 or 9pm) and the carriages were strewn with mangled copies of the papers. Worse still was that from time to time the papers were used to disguise all manner of horrors - careful which one you pick up to read! Safer to use your phone frankly :)

At least for me on my commute, that time on the train is a golden opportunity to triage my inbox and get ready for when I "hit the ground" at the office.

Plus who knows what those people were doing on their phones - sure some people are just watching netflix or whatever, but I have seen many people doing things like learning languages or learning to play piano etc: things that most people would say are laudable pursuits and which would not have been possible without phones.

Sure I get it. I’ve just not commuted since the iPhone was first released.

Imagine for a moment that we don't use our hands to use a device: you wake up one morning, board a train and everyone has a head-harness holding a rectangle in front of their eyes. It’s a very strange sight. But I’m old and my days are numbered; this isn’t my world.

FWIW every NYC subway station already has service, which I think is the most important thing. Most London Underground stations don't have service, which is super annoying as a tourist ("uh oh I forgot to map my route in advance and now I don't know where to get off or transfer").

I met a French woman on the F train (in the before-times of the late last century) who was confused about stations and needed directions, and we wound up dating. Decades later I and a half-dozen of my friends have visited her in Paris and other parts of France.

I imagine that if she had a phone, or I was staring at mine, that would never have happened.

Fortunately, airplane mode and "do not disturb" are still available wherever you go.

can we all agree 4Gand5G are good enough and focus on other technology improvements?

Can't even get 4G speeds (~100Mbit) anyways :) That would be faster than the internet at home lol

Odd that this is presented as a news. Milan tube has 3G and later 4G coverage for many many years now.

…why would that mean it isn’t news that it’s available in London?

> Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city

If that’s the mission statement of your site I’m struggling to work out how you’d get to “Milan already has this, we shouldn’t cover it”.

Well, it is news for commuters in London, given that the signal from the Milan tube likely doesn't reach that far.

My house has fiber, how is milans tube having 4G impressive?

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