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Are you one of those people who find it really, really annoying that London’s tube doesn’t have mobile phone coverage? Other metro networks around the world seem to have 4G and even 5G, but the London Underground is famous for being a phone blackout, with any wannabe internet users left frantically scrambling to get on the Wi-Fi at every stop.
If you’re one of those people who’ve longed for phone coverage on the tube, we’ve got excellent news. More of the London Underground (the actual underground bits, anyway) now has coverage than ever before, as a new stretch of the Central Line was given mobile phone coverage this week.
The tunnel between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road stations, as well as TCR’s ticket halls and escalators, now have network coverage.
The new stretch of blackout-free zone joins other underground bits of the tube with mobile coverage that include the Jubilee Line between Westminster and Canning Town, the Central Line between Holland Park and Queensway and the Northern Line between Archway and Kentish Town.
It’s not stopping there, either. In the coming weeks, the Charing Cross branch of Euston on the Northern Line will get 4G and 5G, while other stations on the Central and Northern Lines will get data over the next few weeks.
By the end of this year, apparently 33 new stations will get mobile coverage, with that rising to 40 by next spring. The Elizabeth line will get coverage, too, with all tunnelled sections and stations getting signal by the end of spring 2024.
Perhaps it’s worth a (short-lived) moment of silence for those of us that quite like the tube not having internet. After all, who wants to listen to everyone else’s music, phone calls and TikToks on public transport? The silence is sometimes quite nice, actually.
Did you see that these are officially London’s hottest tube lines?
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