How London cracked mobile phone coverage on the Underground

Post by traceroute66 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

alexfoo wrote: post #116

ceejayoz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a good number of places in the world where people of varied incomes live relatively close.

London tends to get that because it has never really been planned. It just grew over the course of 1600 years and absorbed other areas as it went. There are plenty of areas where a row of £20m+ homes are opposite blocks of 3-bed flats that go for a hundredth of that price. Hundreds of years ago, before the rail or underground network, you still needed plenty of working class to live near where the rich people lived a…

Post by traceroute66 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #102

cm2187 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Certainly people would do that. And sending text messages in the 00s. People have been wearing headphones while commuting for a generation, and (not on the underground but certainly on trains) people in the 80s and 90s were far more obnoxious - get stuck on a busy train between people having conversations about inane stuff while smoking. Public transport is far better today than it was 30 years ago, annoyances are fa…

Post by 47282847 » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #102

cm2187 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Certainly people would do that. And sending text messages in the 00s. People have been wearing headphones while commuting for a generation, and (not on the underground but certainly on trains) people in the 80s and 90s were far more obnoxious - get stuck on a busy train between people having conversations about inane stuff while smoking. Public transport is far better today than it was 30 years ago, annoyances are fa…

Post by mark_undoio » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #107

I'm old enough to remember the first attempt at 'mobile underground'. Maybe I've forgotten the name but it was something like BT Phone Zone, though google returns zero relevant results, so perhaps it was called something else. In lieu of public call boxes, BT trialled a base station that was installed in some tube stations (almost certainly Oxford St and Tottenham Court Rd), and with the correct 'wireless handset' as…

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Sun, Jan 18, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

zipy124 wrote: post #134

hotstickyballs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That directly goes against the earlier post where you said you lived in a particularly nice part of town

London has a very high ratio of extremely nice houses on a road opposite council houses, or former council houses. There can often be a very large mix of housing in one area.