That always hurts. I live in a particularly nice bit of London and there is virtually no mobile phone service other than voice and can only get 80 meg ADSL. Yet the mole people get better service. Grr.
I'd say it's developing-world tier, but a lot of the developing world has really good 5G signal these days.
They also have a much bigger population using exclusively mobiles rather than landlines, since their infrastructure developed when the former was already available, and it's cheaper to just put up a few towers than run one landline to each subscriber.
There are also some absolute morons out there. Couple of local things around me...
First I went to one of the local town planning meetings in my area when they were rolling out FTTC. This one was due to a rather old person objecting to the placement of a streetside box which was not even outside her property and no one who it would have affected could see it or cared about it. I raised my objections about her being a NIMBY old fart and was asked to leave. She single-handedly blocked it for 5 years due to council connections. She dropped dead. Stuck on 20 meg ADSL until that happened.
Second, they built a 5g mast put didn't put any equipment in it and left it 3 months. Several local threads on Facebook from the tweakers about how it was causing all sorts of completely unrelated problems from tinnitus to covid to mind control. Then someone burned it. There is still no equipment in the cabinet or mast today, nearly 4 years on. No one got 5g.
Second, they built a 5g mast put didn't put any equipment in it and left it 3 months. Several local threads on Facebook from the tweakers about how it was causing all sorts of completely unrelated problems from tinnitus to covid to mind control. Then someone burned it. There is still no equipment in the cabinet or mast today, nearly 4 years on. No one got 5g.
Pretty neat but as someone who commutes every day on the New York subway I hope it’s never “cracked” here. Phone usage without headphones is already annoying enough and I greatly appreciate the various people trying to take calls eventually lose service.
The worst is not calls, it is the thousands of zombies hooked up on tiktok 24/7, of course with headphones, so completely unaware and indifferent to their environment, who block tunnels, escalators, turnstiles, etc.
In the 90s we read the paper and dumbed with our magnetic tickets. In the 00s we listened to MP3s while playing snake on an oyster. In the 10s we played Andy birds and listened to iTunes with a credit card at the turnstile. In the 20s we doom scroll and listen to Spotify while tapping out with our phone.
All of that that they did while they sit. I don’t remember people reading the newspapers while slow walking in the middle of a corridor. And the problem with headphones is that they make people unaware of their surrounding, alone in the world, and therefore for instance unaware that there is someone on their left that they will cut the way to. Small incivilities, but repeat several times a day every day and it gets seriously annoying.
It’s a tough choice, is it worse to hear their phone calls, or hear 2 seconds of every bit of TikTok/Instagram feed trash. Either way, no cellular access seems a plus.
What is the thing with people using phones without headphones? And making calls on public transport? When did that become a thing? It’s the most obnoxious selfish behaviour and it shocks me every time.
It’s not just Gen Z either, I’ve seen a few boomers do it and even a couple of millennials.
Who still calls anyway? Literally all my friends exclusively message now (on WhatsApp).
It would be really annoying if I were out of touch for the whole duration of subway trips. But in my city it works great. Here the 3 main providers pooled together and shared the installation.
This behaviour is so bad on London (above ground) trains, if they ever do 'crack it' and roll out mobile signal to the Underground, those tiny carriages will be unbearable.
London, increasingly common. I’d say a third of the time when I take the tube. Combine that with people making loud calls, 100% of the time. But I find people imposing their music or tiktok videos more obnoxious than a builder discussing his next job a bit loudly.
It may also be highly dependent on which direction you travel. When you travel east from the city, you get totally different demographics than when you travel west.
Because silence is a common good, like clean air. It's everyone's. When people fill it with their noise they effectively privatize it for the duration. When they shout on speakerphone or play their music or blare sound from their apps it's especially selfish.
You do understand that one of those “needs”affects others around you, and one of them leaves them in peace, right?
Also I’m sure parent wasn’t referring to emergency calls
Not to excuse other people's behavior but buying a decent pair of noise canceling headphones or earbuds will make putting up with it a whole lot easier. You don't even have to listen to anything, or you can put rain noises and thunderstorms. It's as much better soundscape than public transport.
That also creates a problem that people then can not hear important announcements or be aware of dangers (such as knife wielding attackers, as happened on an LNER train just late last year)
You can still hear those things, just not obnoxiously loudly. NC works best against static sounds. Speech still makes it through. Just not as loud.
If you're in a busy car enough people will hear it to be aware, and if you're on your own you will hear the announcement clearly.
Besides it's really a one in 10 million chance you'll get stabbed on the metro, not worth worrying about. The chance of getting hit by a car in traffic is much higher. That feeling of always being in some kind of danger seems to be very American, I never really see that in people here in Europe. I think it's the sensationalism in the press there, every little incident is blown up to massive "BREAKING NEWS!" proportions.
This is the new system for emergency communications? TfL just finished up an upgrade on that in 2021. That upgrade was built by Thales.[1] That system is purely for operational use, and is not cell phone compatible. It's compatible with the gear cops and fire brigades use. Is it being replaced?
As late as 2018, the classic century-old system, with two bare wires on insulators on the tunnel walls, was still maintained.[2] Clipping a telephone handset to the two wires would connect to a dispatcher, and the wires were placed so that reaching out of the driver's cab to do this was possible. In addition, squeezing the wires together by hand would trip a relay and cut traction power. Is that still operational? The 2011 replacement was ISDN.
I had assumed the delay was technical but it turns out it was mostly about finding a business model that worked for everyone. It is good they finally settled on a shared infrastructure approach so they do not have to crowd the tunnels with extra equipment.
I use the underground frequently. It doesn't really feel like half of it is covered. Where it is available, it works amazingly. I might have been using the other half by sheer luck.
One of the frustrating things about international roaming in the UK is typically your plan does not include coverage on this neutral network on the underground
Source? As someone that comes back to London every month, I’ve been able to roam the same as anywhere else in the UK. I’d be shocked if this were true.
The main problem if you're roaming is that you're considered a lower-priority customer, and since the network is often saturated already, you don't get any bandwidth.
Did the UK stop people from just picking up a cheap SIM at the Airport? I always like a local number when traveling. Anyway, Indian Roaming plans are so cheap these days that it's much easier and cheaper to just subscribe to them as part of the plan. These days, I don’t even need to add/activate it or anything, the providers turn it ON when I start my phone outside India and turn it off when I re-activate back in India.
So if I follow, you’re saying that because London’s underground is older than Tokyo’s, it somehow changes the physical environment of the tunnels or their surroundings such that installing the required technology is more difficult?
> There’s another distance limit at work here, and that is the speed of light. It takes milliseconds for the signal in your phone to reach the hotel above ground and be handed over to the mobile network.
It takes roughly 100us for light to travel 30km – Can you explain how the speed of light is relevant here?
As a resident with a phone problem I miss the underground not having any signal. Other people using TikTok doesn’t bother me so much because it’s relatively rare. My own tendencies with screen time bother me more. No internet actually forced me to read books more and I miss that.
But this is a lot better for tourists who need the internet to navigate underground. So I’m pleased for them.
>There’s another distance limit at work here, and that is the speed of light. It takes milliseconds for the signal in your phone to reach the hotel above ground and be handed over to the mobile network. But if it takes too long to get from phone to hotel, then your phone call s..a.rt..s..t o. br..e..ak up. As it happens, that distance is about 12km, so Boldyn needs nine hotels around London to cover the whole of the Underground
I find that interesting. Another fascinating rabbit hole the article has sent me down is that there is an unused station called north end. I've been down that stretch before and i had no idea. Does anyone know if passengers can see it?
> It turns out the phone signal inside the station can be better than the one above ground
I was surprised when I noticed I had 5G in the tunnel, ran a speed test and hit 641Mbps down!
https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/6831252952
I'd say it's developing-world tier, but a lot of the developing world has really good 5G signal these days.
They also have a much bigger population using exclusively mobiles rather than landlines, since their infrastructure developed when the former was already available, and it's cheaper to just put up a few towers than run one landline to each subscriber.
First I went to one of the local town planning meetings in my area when they were rolling out FTTC. This one was due to a rather old person objecting to the placement of a streetside box which was not even outside her property and no one who it would have affected could see it or cared about it. I raised my objections about her being a NIMBY old fart and was asked to leave. She single-handedly blocked it for 5 years due to council connections. She dropped dead. Stuck on 20 meg ADSL until that happened.
Second, they built a 5g mast put didn't put any equipment in it and left it 3 months. Several local threads on Facebook from the tweakers about how it was causing all sorts of completely unrelated problems from tinnitus to covid to mind control. Then someone burned it. There is still no equipment in the cabinet or mast today, nearly 4 years on. No one got 5g.
Reminds me of this infamous decade-old story:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161010203002/http://mybroadban...
I don’t see the issue.
It’s not just Gen Z either, I’ve seen a few boomers do it and even a couple of millennials.
It would be really annoying if I were out of touch for the whole duration of subway trips. But in my city it works great. Here the 3 main providers pooled together and shared the installation.
Sorry, nonsense. I use the tube several times a day and it's a real rarity.
I do worry about the tube becoming a cacophony of phone calls, but really? Everyone message now anyway so I reckon that'll be a rarity too.
It is noticeable on buses and overground when people play things out load, but to be honest quite rare in the grand scheme of things.
Imagine trying to live your life where other people’s desires by default overrode you own.
Unfortunately that happens a lot; it's called the government.
It's about acknowledging it's a shared resource and respecting the space. No loud noises, no littering, no being drunk etc
These days people act like they're the only ones travelling
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx4lje9jpjo
Don't be a douche.
If you're in a busy car enough people will hear it to be aware, and if you're on your own you will hear the announcement clearly.
Besides it's really a one in 10 million chance you'll get stabbed on the metro, not worth worrying about. The chance of getting hit by a car in traffic is much higher. That feeling of always being in some kind of danger seems to be very American, I never really see that in people here in Europe. I think it's the sensationalism in the press there, every little incident is blown up to massive "BREAKING NEWS!" proportions.
So the ESN in the tunnels runs at 400 MHz, far lower than the 700 to 3,600 MHz range usually used by smartphones.
It's worth noting that 450MHz was listed as one of the GSM bands, but apparently was never used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands#GSM-450
Edit: ah I see why, this is exclusively about the Emergency Services network, not for regular phones.
In that sense it seems a bit similar to GSM-R used by the railways here.
As late as 2018, the classic century-old system, with two bare wires on insulators on the tunnel walls, was still maintained.[2] Clipping a telephone handset to the two wires would connect to a dispatcher, and the wires were placed so that reaching out of the driver's cab to do this was possible. In addition, squeezing the wires together by hand would trip a relay and cut traction power. Is that still operational? The 2011 replacement was ISDN.
[1] https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/news-centre/press-releases/th...
[2] https://www.railengineer.co.uk/communications-on-the-central...
The content doesn't feel AI generated, but maybe it is? I read somewhere that short paragraphs is an AI signature!?
With the old WiFi networks (Virgin, Vodafone WiFi, etc.), yes.
With the new 4G+5G coverage, you can access that the same as you access above ground coverage.
The challenge isn’t the technology but rather the environment you’re trying to retrofit
Please expand…
It takes roughly 100us for light to travel 30km – Can you explain how the speed of light is relevant here?
But this is a lot better for tourists who need the internet to navigate underground. So I’m pleased for them.
I find that interesting. Another fascinating rabbit hole the article has sent me down is that there is an unused station called north end. I've been down that stretch before and i had no idea. Does anyone know if passengers can see it?