LU/Elizabeth Line 4G update

[jon0844]

I thought that with the testing they'd limit the service to selected test/engineering SIMs?

 

[Gigabit]

No infrastructure at Liverpool Street, is there any reason they've stopped at Bank?

And they've over-built at Notting Hill Gate despite having good macro coverage yet won't cover East Putney, Southfields or Putney Bridge which don't.

 

[MrJeeves]

I thought that with the testing they'd limit the service to selected test/engineering SIMs?

You'd think so. Either way, you can still see the network as live using certain specialist tools on your device anyway, so not a big deal to seeing if it's active or not anyway.

FWIW, went on Lizzy line yesterday and no network was live.

 

[bicbasher]

I was at Tottenham Court Road last week, however as I was using the Elizabeth Line, my handset started to pick up a 4G signal in the EL corridor up to the escalators but wasn't useful for data. Once I got up to the LU concourse, it worked fine on O2.

 

[mrmartin]

Euston Charing Cross Northern Line live now: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...nderground-station-gets-4g-and-5g-mobile.html

 

[JonnyM]

Euston Charing Cross Northern Line live now: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...nderground-station-gets-4g-and-5g-mobile.html

I'm can't speak for others, but while this is good news I'm getting increasingly cynical about this roll out. Despite all the pomp and press releases TfL are only going to move the goalposts again soon. I note from the press release it is only Northern line part of Euston station, the Victoria line will have to wait 'several months'. And the H&C, Met, Circle line? Maybe 2025? Who knows!

The whole thing is moving so slowly that it will probably be complete by the end of the decade.

 

[Gigabit]

To me it feels like they've subtly changed the rollout to cover stations with tunnels following later.

 

[jon0844]

The whole thing is moving so slowly that it will probably be complete by the end of the decade.

Following on from the delays that have never been entirely explained, I expect the plan is still to switch on large sections in one go - but where possible some smaller sections are going live as soon as possible.

It's perhaps not ideal to be doing things in this way, but it is surely better than nothing. Regular users of stations now covered get the benefit earlier than they otherwise would.

And the service is quite incredible for EE and Three users, with speeds in excess of 1Gbps, faster than my top-level fibre service at home! Clearly such speeds will drop once people start using the service.

 

[Gigabit]

Following on from the delays that have never been entirely explained, I expect the plan is still to switch on large sections in one go - but where possible some smaller sections are going live as soon as possible.

It's perhaps not ideal to be doing things in this way, but it is surely better than nothing. Regular users of stations now covered get the benefit earlier than they otherwise would.

And the service is quite incredible for EE and Three users, with speeds in excess of 1Gbps, faster than my top-level fibre service at home! Clearly such speeds will drop once people start using the service.

Is there any particular reason you decided to highlight only two of the four MNOs?

 

[MrJeeves]

Is there any particular reason you decided to highlight only two of the four MNOs?

Because the others haven't got gigabit speeds?

I'm surprised Three was mentioned since every station I've gone to has had broken 5G (the indicator shows but the speeds aren't actually there) for myself and others.

I think O2 managed about 600 when I last tried it with n78 5G and Vodafone was a bit less.

 

[jon0844]

Is there any particular reason you decided to highlight only two of the four MNOs?

Yes, because Vodafone and O2 are considerably slower.

 

[Gigabit]

Yes, because Vodafone and O2 are considerably slower.

But O2 has way more customers? What exactly is your issue with 300-600Mbps on O2 vs EE at a bit faster? What exactly are you doing on your phone that you care so much about that kind of speed?

I'd say with 40 million active connections it's impressive O2 is delivering 6/10 of what EE is!

Do you consider 600Mbps on a phone not "incredible"?

I think our perspective and experiences are just different in terms of what we want out of a phone. I don't get excited about a massive speed test number, for me it's about being able to use my phone in places I can't at the moment.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Sep 2023 ==

Because the others haven't got gigabit speeds?

I'm surprised Three was mentioned since every station I've gone to has had broken 5G (the indicator shows but the speeds aren't actually there) for myself and others.

I think O2 managed about 600 when I last tried it with n78 5G and Vodafone was a bit less.

I struggle to understand what you would need 1Gb for on a phone. I'd be happy with 10 everywhere if I am honest and Vodafone delivers that on the Tube for me.

 

[jon0844]

That spectrum has to be divided up between the users, so given O2 has more customers that's clearly going to have an impact.

 

[Gigabit]

That spectrum has to be divided up between the users, so given O2 has more customers that's clearly going to have an impact.

I just don't understand the appeal personally of having 1Gb on your phone, personally I'd rather the MNOs and Network Rail spent less on that and more on improving coverage on the railway and having something like 10Mb on every line.

 

[jon0844]

As I said, that capacity has to be split between users so if they built it with 10Mbps everywhere, the service would be unusable.

 

[Gigabit]

As I said, that capacity has to be split between users so if they built it with 10Mbps everywhere, the service would be unusable.

If every customer received a few megabits on every single line in the country, I'd say job well done and I expect most commuters would too. We can't even manage that.

 

[MrJeeves]

I struggle to understand what you would need 1Gb for on a phone. I'd be happy with 10 everywhere if I am honest and Vodafone delivers that on the Tube for me.

You don't need it at all, at least not for one user, but it's still impressive to see high peaks like this.

My issue is that, given overheads of scheduling and signalling, if a network can only do a couple hundred Mbps on the tube with one person maxing it out, with ~100 devices on a platform, I would be concerned whether the experience would actually be usable or not.

 

[Gigabit]

You don't need it at all, at least not for one user, but it's still impressive to see high peaks like this.

My issue is that, given overheads of scheduling and signalling, if a network can only do a couple hundred Mbps on the tube with one person maxing it out, with ~100 devices on a platform, I would be concerned whether the experience would actually be usable or not.

I've had no issues on any of the networks on full Tubes at rush hour, seems to work just swimmingly. I can't say the same about them all at Overground stations.

 

[mrmartin]

I've had no issues on any of the networks on full Tubes at rush hour, seems to work just swimmingly. I can't say the same about them all at Overground stations.

Definitely not true. Networks without 5G on JLE were really really struggling when I last used it, at least on o2. Basically unusable on 4G on heavily loaded trains for me recently.

 

[Gigabit]

Definitely not true. Networks without 5G on JLE were really really struggling when I last used it, at least on o2. Basically unusable on 4G on heavily loaded trains for me recently.

Ah fair enough, I have only used the newer sections recently and had no issues there but there is more spectrum deployed at such places.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Sep 2023 ==

Underground Wi-Fi still seems to be broken, same on EE and O2. Data loads so slowly, it's basically unusable at this point.

 

[TheHSRailFan]

TFL have released a map showing what on the underground (and Elizabeth line) will go live and what is live.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/mobile-coverage-tube-map-september-23.pdf

I tried to take a screenshot of the whole page but the quality would be hard to read.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/g778/Public%20reports%20pack%20Thursday%2005-Oct-2023%2010.00%20Programmes%20and%20Investment%20Committee.pdf?T=10

Work to expand mobile coverage on the London Underground is continuing, with a total of 16 stations (12 per cent) and 12 tunnel sections (24 tunnel roads - 6 per cent) now live at the end of Quarter I.



BAI Communications have rebranded as Boldvn Networks and continue to invest according to their business plan, deploying 500 engineers six nights a week to build the infrastructure needed to support the network.



We have agreed a new plan that accelerates delivery of the very popular 5G services. It also accelerates Elizabeth line coverage, and adds new coverage for the London Overground and the DLR where these services run below ground. This significant change has resulted in us agreeing a new baseline plan with Boldyn Networks, which has also been agreed with the Home Office.



Elizabeth line coverage will now start to be delivered, with the first stations getting coverage by the end of December 2023 and tunnelled sections aiming to be completed in spring 2024. Exact dates are being finalised based on Elizabeth line closures over Christmas and in early 2024.

 

[MrJeeves]

https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/... Programmes and Investment Committee.pdf?T=10

Pretty sure all of this was part of the various press releases up until now anyway

 

[Gigabit]

District Line seems MIA as I predicted many months ago.

Find it an odd strategy that they plan to over-build on certain sections but not others. Very odd to not have any infrastructure between Wimbledon and Southfields where coverage is spotty.

 

[JonnyM]

District Line seems MIA as I predicted many months ago.

Find it an odd strategy that they plan to over-build on certain sections but not others. Very odd to not have any infrastructure between Wimbledon and Southfields where coverage is spotty.

I was at Notting Hill Gate last week as I decided to go home via Wimbledon for a change. The whole station, both the Central line and District/Circl line platforms, and connecting passageways seem flooded with boxes. I noticed that they had ingeniously hidden some of the boxes behind the station name signs on the District and Circle line platforms. It was difficult to say if these were active though. There was a strong Vodafone signal but I’m very rarely at NHG so I don’t know of any difference. Maybe there is a strong signal in that area?

I was disappointed though at the woeful state of reception south of East Putney, some things never change. Hopefully Boldyn will improve reception here in time.

 

[matt_world2004]

District Line seems MIA as I predicted many months ago.

Find it an odd strategy that they plan to over-build on certain sections but not others. Very odd to not have any infrastructure between Wimbledon and Southfields where coverage is spotty.

Would they be able to do the Wimbledon branch given it runs on network rail track

 

[Mojo]

Would they be able to do the Wimbledon branch given it runs on network rail track

The Wimbledon branch is not Network Rail track. The branch is owned by London Underground, it is the signalling and power supplies that are controlled by Network Rail.

The fact that the tunnel between East Putney and Southfields is being fitted with it suggests there is no barrier in any case.

 

[MrJeeves]

I was at Notting Hill Gate last week as I decided to go home via Wimbledon for a change. The whole station, both the Central line and District/Circl line platforms, and connecting passageways seem flooded with boxes.

Pretty sure this has been the case for ages... Many Z1/2 stations are littered with the boxes (active antennas) throughout. I think we (our group of mobile network nerds) first saw them in Angel around early-mid 2022? And then Waterloo gained them mid-July 2022.

It's not really indicative of a station gaining coverage any time soon.

Either way, when we visited NHG in Dec 2022, just before the press releases, we found most of the station was covered by active nodes or passive antennas of some kind.

NHG is the only one where I've seen directional external antennas used (last picture), which is interesting.

 

[bicbasher]

Definitely not true. Networks without 5G on JLE were really really struggling when I last used it, at least on o2. Basically unusable on 4G on heavily loaded trains for me recently.

O2 in the JLE tunnels is sluggish. Just enough to check socials and low bitrate streaming of music services. Usable in the stations, but nowhere as fast as Three and EE.

 

[mrmartin]

Pretty sure this has been the case for ages... Many Z1/2 stations are littered with the boxes (active antennas) throughout. I think we (our group of mobile network nerds) first saw them in Angel around early-mid 2022? And then Waterloo gained them mid-July 2022.

It's not really indicative of a station gaining coverage any time soon.

Either way, when we visited NHG in Dec 2022, just before the press releases, we found most of the station was covered by active nodes or passive antennas of some kind.

NHG is the only one where I've seen directional external antennas used (last picture), which is interesting.

Seems really odd to me that the kit is in, there's already network backhaul at these stations (for WiFi), yet they can't get at least the stations up quicker. Tunnels I can semi understand given the harsh working conditions in comparison? Anyone have any clue what is going on?