Transport for London Hopes to Extend Mobile Networks Underground

Reports indicated that Transport for London are in the early stages of talks that could result in the extension of consumer mobile broadband and phone services to cover the city’s vast network of underground tubes and stations, all 100 miles of it.

The prospect represents a huge technical and cost challenge, which is likely to be supported by some of the underground’s existing WiFi networks and a slew of new infrastructure. According to The Telegraph, several operators are believed to be involved in the talks, including small cell developer Airvana (Commscope).

Nobody would be surprised if EE (BT) were also involved, not least because they’ve already picked up the Government’s Emergency Services Network contract (here) and as part of that they’ve promised to increase their 4G landmass coverage from 60% of the UK to 95% by 2020 (99.8% population coverage).

London will be the last region to switch over to EE’s new system and that’s partly because of how difficult it is to upgrade the Tube network.

An Industry Source told the Newspaper:

“[The new network] could be controlled by TfL, by one of the operators, or by some independent infrastructure provider. It could be piggybacked on some of the Wi-Fi infrastructure that is already down there.”

So far TFL has only confirmed that they’re exploring solutions in order to cater for the new Emergency Services Network, although the suggestion is that commercial mobile operators might then be brought in to connect the Tube to support consumer services too.

But for now a TFL spokesperson could only say this: “We do not currently have plans to introduce mobile phone coverage for customers. The introduction of such coverage would need to be commercially viable and would be subject to consultation.”