A few months back we wrote about London mayor Boris Johnson’s hope to have mobile coverage on the Underground in place by the time the 2012 Olympics kick off in the nation’s capital.
Now that hope looks closer than ever to being fulfilled: Chinese electronics colossus Huawei has offered to provide a mobile network for the Tube worth £50m for absolutely nothing.
The system will see voice calls carried via transmitters placed on the ceilings of underground tunnels, with Huawei set to make its money from maintenance costs down the line. Vodafone and O2 have stepped in and said they’ll stump up the installation costs, leaving the cost to taxpayer so far running at zero.
But of course, naysayers will point out the other intangible cost of mobile access on the Tube: the removal of one of the few remaining places where we can legitimately get a break from our always-on digital lifestyles.
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