As part of push to make London ready for the upcoming Olympic games in July and August, Transport for London have agreed to roll out WiFi across London Tube platforms. Transport for London’s Director of Strategy, Gareth Powell, said..
London Underground is continuing with preparations to install the necessary infrastructure and is on schedule to complete the project as planned. An announcement of the chosen service provider will be made in early spring leaving plenty of time for this to be delivered to customers in time for the 2012 Games.
It is said to be rolled out to 120 stations across London, there are approx 357 stations across London though, so just less than half. I’m guessing that it will be the stations in the very centre.
People will be able to check emails, surf the web and check results whilst they are waiting for the Tube.
Last year plans were shelved for a similar scheme where the UK mobile networks were to provide mobile services on the Tube platforms. Luckily it seems like this new scheme will go ahead. It makes you wonder if the Olympics were not on whether it would still be happening.
One thing that does still remain unanswered is whether or not it will cost anything. During trials at Charing Cross station, train related information was free. BT customers could access anything and other customers had to pay.
There are still no plans to extend it into the actual trains though. This would really be a great service. A bit of a logistical problem with the mobile network underground. But hey maybe one day they will get their heads around it.
So it all sounds good. But will it just be broken like most other public hotspots? Will they need to train someone to turn hundreds of routers and extenders off and back on again? Will some highly paid Exec decide to charge a ridiculous amount per MB like they do in hotels? Or will it just be a great idea well implemented?
Source – This is London