The expansion of mobile coverage on the London Underground continues, and they’ve just added more parts of the Northern and Central lines.
On the Northern line, coverage has been expanded to add the tunnels between Belsize Park, Archway and Tottenham Court Road, a distance of more than four miles underground, and within stations along the line. Also, on the Northern line, coverage inside Goodge Street station has been switched on, in addition to the station’s existing WiFi service.
On the Central line, mobile phone coverage has also been added to the tunnelled section of the Central line between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn.
Mobile phones are now able to work in the tunnels along the eastern section of the Jubilee line between Westminster and Canning Town, between Belsize Park, Archway and Tottenham Court Road on the Northern line and between Holland Park and Queensway, and between Oxford Circus and Holborn, on the Central line.
When those underground tunnels and stations are combined with sections of the London Underground that are above ground, nearly two-thirds of the whole tube network now has mobile coverage.
Projected phone coverage by spring 2024 (c) TfL
In the coming weeks, more stations along the Northern and Central lines, such as Hampstead, Warren Street (Ticket Hall and Northern line platforms) and Holborn (Ticket Hall and Central line platforms), will also be added to the mobile coverage rollout.
The company installing the equipment, Boldyn, is also getting ready to start work on introducing mobile coverage to the southern end of the Northern line, with the first sections going live during summer 2024.
On the Elizabeth line, the first parts will get phone coverage by the end of this year. A recent weekend closure of the central tunnels allowed Boldyn engineers to install cables along the railway. Testing and assurance work at stations between Paddington and Abbey Wood is now well underway, and the whole line should have phone coverage by next spring.
Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at TfL said: “We’re pleased that customers using Goodge Street station are now starting to get high-speed mobile coverage on their phones within the station, as part of the next stage of our project with Boldyn Networks to bring it to the whole Tube network. We are now working to expand coverage along the Central line, as well as preparing for the first stations on the Elizabeth line to get coverage, so that more customers can get the latest travel information, access social media, check their emails, make calls, and stream videos while passing through these stations.”
Around 500 people work each night during the short engineering hours to install the phone equipment.
The installation is being carried out by Boldyn (formerly BAI Communication) under a 20-year concession, where Boldyn covers the installation costs and then rents capacity to the mobile networks.
Tube station phone coverage:
Central line
- Holland Park
- Notting Hill Gate
- Oxford Circus (Central line only)
- Queensway
- Tottenham Court Road (Central and Northern lines only)
Northern line
- Archway
- Camden Town
- Euston (Charing Cross branch only)
- Goodge Street
- Kentish Town (station closed but 4G will still be provided for passing trains)
- Mornington Crescent
- Tufnell Park
Jubilee line
- Bermondsey
- Canada Water
- Canary Wharf
- London Bridge (Jubilee line only)
- North Greenwich
- Southwark
- Waterloo (Jubilee line only)
- Westminster
Extraordinary the Elizabeth line was not built to have this from the start. Someone should explain this decision.
It’s been explained quite often – considering the difficulties getting the signalling working, it was decided not to complicate matters by adding another source of potential radio interference until the line was settled in and bugs ironed out.
To be a pedant, I don’t think it can be assumed that all overground sections have mobile coverage. The north west branch of the Piccadilly line has awful coverage.
That said, good article, thank you.
The targets have quietly slipped back. It was only a couple of years ago when Khan was promising the whole network would be covered by end of this year. In reality a very small fraction of the underground lines have been covered.
I’ve checked my older articles, and I can’t find any reference to full coverage by the end of 2023. The earliest I can find is by the end of 2024.
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/mobile-phone-coverage-coming-to-the-london-underground-tunnels-44654/
Looks like the Northern line section mentioned might not have been turned on yet – no signal north of Tottenham Court Road at least until Warren Street as yet. Nothing at Goodge Street either.
Good to see it mentioned though as hopefully not long before more of this section is live.