back to article London 'not-spots' look out! Mayor wants team to tackle crap signal

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wants to deploy a "not-spot" team to tackle poor connectivity in the capital, under plans unveiled today which include re-announcing 4G on the underground for 2019. The squad will be hitting London's most problematic connectivity spots to work with local authorities and identify ways to improve …

  1. Douchus McBagg

    if you have the room to reach into your pocket and get your phone out on the tube, then go for it sunshine. but speaking for myself think i'd be happier with some friggin air con shoved down the hole rather than data. least 4g is data only. none of that "talking" rubbish please!

    mind the gap

    1. Tom 38

      Aircon isn't possible on the deep lines (Red, black, blue), without drilling many many vents throughout central London. The Lizzie Line will have aircon.

      1. sal II

        It's enough to run the air con on the open sections of the lines which will keep the interior cool enough for at least part of the underground portions.

        The real problem is that the vast majority of the rolling stock is circa '70/'80 with no air con.

        1. Len

          The big issue with air con on the Tube (the deep lines) is that air con doesn't cool, it only moves heat from one place to another. Unless they cool the tunnels, air con on trains will just move the heat from inside the train to the tunnel. This will heat up the tunnels even further making it even harder to keep the trains cool...

          That is the reason why the experiments on the Victoria Line focused on cooling the tunnels. If the tunnels are cooler the trains will be cooler too.

    2. Test Man

      "least 4g is data only."

      Data won't stop people from talking... #voip #messengercalling

  2. s. pam Silver badge
    FAIL

    I don't want to connectivity in the Tube!

    I want it to be air conditioned and clean, two things it desperately needs and NOT raise the price with stupid gimmicks. I swear that Mayor Sad really has a distortion filter set on another planet!

  3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Ask Google?

    They could start by asking Google. If they don't already have a coverage map, it should be easy to add a device to the Google mapping cars (other mapping cars are available) and get up to date and accurate coverage data.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: Ask Google?

      "They could start by asking Google"

      Surely the first people to ask are the mobile operators!

      1. DJ Smiley

        Re: Ask Google?

        No no, our network is flawless!

  4. Len

    Taking credit

    Taking credit for other people's work is par for the course for London mayors. Boris Johnson took credit for the cycle hire scheme ("Boris Bikes") and Overground expansion despite both being developed under Livingston.

  5. Simon Rockman

    Starting now for 2019

    Good luck with that. "Connect", the TETRA system used for driver communication and signalling was a three year project. It took over 11 years. Putting LTE in with consumer access and the ability to handover a train full pf people streaming Youtube is significantly more difficult.

    But this isn't that much of a problem. The police won't exclusively be using LTE anytime soon, they will have TETRA capable devices for another decade.

    Cooling? The tube should replace the second carriage of every train with a flatbed truck with a huge block of ice.

  6. adwoot

    Budapest can do it

    There's full fat 4G across the deep lines on the Budapest Underground. Great for browsing and good old SMS but the trains are too noisy to even attempt a call - think it will be a non-issue once London finally catches up.

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