London Underground mobile phone plan goes down the tube

"I'm not on the train": Prohibitive costs stop implementation in its tracks

Plans to implement mobile telephony on the Tube have stalled

Plans to roll out mobile phone technology on the London Underground have been shelved after supplier proposals were deemed "not commercially viable".

A tendering process for a six-month mobile phone trial was put out by Transport for London (TfL) in 2007 and the pilot was due to start last year for Bank and Waterloo stations with a view to extending across the entire Tube system.

But reports now suggest that while TfL accepted that cellular technology could be rolled out across stations and tunnels, implementation costs would be prohibitive.

At the time the tendering process was launched, London Underground’s strategy and service development director Richard Parry said there was a “growing demand for mobile coverage to be extended to deep-level sections of the Tube.”

Elsewhere, the rollout of a multi-user distributed antenna system in January allowed Glasgow commuters to use their mobile phones while travelling on the underground.