http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17373523

Extract...

---quote---
The contract is only for ticket offices, escalators and platforms
because it would have required major construction work to have added
connectivity to the network's tunnels.

From July 2012 all Tube passengers will initially be able to connect
to the internet for free.

After the Olympic and Paralympic Games it will be a pay-as-you-go service.

Virgin Media's mobile and broadband customers will be offered continued
access as part of their subscriptions. Other non-paying users will be
limited to a site showing online travel information.

The firm said it intended to introduce wi-fi to 80 stations by the
summer, and by up to 120 stations by the end of the year.
---/quote---

Mizter T wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17373523

Extract...

---quote---
The contract is only for ticket offices, escalators and platforms
because it would have required major construction work to have added
connectivity to the network's tunnels.

From July 2012 all Tube passengers will initially be able to connect
to the internet for free.

After the Olympic and Paralympic Games it will be a pay-as-you-go
service.
Bloody BT Openzone, Sky the Cloud, and now Virgin have carved up
what was free wifi, now it's only free for their customers.

Steve Terry
--
Get a free GiffGaff PAYG Sim and £5 bonus after activation at:
http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/gfourwwk

In message , Steve Terry
writes
Mizter T wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17373523

Extract...

---quote---
The contract is only for ticket offices, escalators and platforms
because it would have required major construction work to have added
connectivity to the network's tunnels.

From July 2012 all Tube passengers will initially be able to connect
to the internet for free.

After the Olympic and Paralympic Games it will be a pay-as-you-go
service.
Bloody BT Openzone, Sky the Cloud, and now Virgin have carved up
what was free wifi, now it's only free for their customers.

Eh? How do you make that out? Wifi hasn't even been available on the
Underground (excluding very limited trials) until now. And I certainly
wouldn't want my ticket price to rise to pay for it!

--
Paul G
Typing from Kentish Town

In message , at 18:27:42 on Wed, 14 Mar
2012, Mizter T remarked:
Virgin Media's mobile and broadband customers will be offered continued
access as part of their subscriptions.

I can't see anything on the VM site regarding "free/bundled" wifi for
their mobile customers. Presumably this is some new addition to their
plans they'll be announcing soon. Some other networks already have.

And the reason isn't so much that they want to give their subscribers a
bonus free ride on wifi, but every byte they deliver by wifi is one less
they have to deliver by GSM/3G, and those networks are struggling to
cope with demand (across all networks).
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:27:42 +0000, Mizter T
wrote:

The contract is only for ticket offices, escalators and platforms
because it would have required major construction work to have added
connectivity to the network's tunnels.

A pity they seem to have ruled out connectivity within the
tunnels/trains themselves. Subway systems in other parts of the world
have been able to achieve this, apparently without too much
difficulty.

Chris

Will this mean all Londoners buying a Pay as you go Virgin Sim?
I think it will!
What is slightly odd is that LUL's contract for its staff is with O2 - which must be feeling as cold as liquid oxygen at the moment.

Does this mean that Virgin is going to replace O2 as LUL's mobile provider?

In message , at 09:54:16 on
Thu, 15 Mar 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:
Will this mean all Londoners buying a Pay as you go Virgin Sim?
I think it will!

Not all of them - if you're on Virgin already you'll not be changing.
If people only want travel info then they'll get that for free. It
will be interesting to see what the scope of that "travel info" will
be - tube? bus? rail?

As a Virgin mobile customer I'm quite happy to see this deal as being
able to check ahead for bus departure info will be very helpful.

I wonder if the wifi's going to be "completely free", or will you have
to buy[1] some "Virgin data" for the day in question, with the wifi part
of it being free?

It could even be that the wifi costs the same per byte, but is "free" in
the sense that you don't have to pay any extra to 'roam' to wifi.

[1] eg a day @50p on the PAYG plans. (I know there are some plans with
(eg) 1GB/month bundled in.)

--
Roland Perry

On 14/03/2012 18:27, Mizter T wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17373523


Also, Virgin Media press release:

http://mediacentre.virginmedia.com/Stories/London-Mayor-announces-digital-first-as-Virgin-Media-selected-to-offer-Wi-Fi-on-Tube-stations-238d.aspx
or via http://preview.tinyurl.com/725vwt8

Excerpt:

---quote---
The new Wi-Fi service will launch as a free, unlimited service for all
Tube passengers from summer 2012 and will continue to offer free live
TfL travel information via a new online portal after this period.
[...]
From July 2012, all Tube passengers will be able to connect to the
internet at stations for free, [...]. Following this period, Wi-Fi at
Tube stations will be made available as part of Virgin Media’s broadband
and mobile subscriptions and all Tube passengers will be able to stay
up-to-date with travel information thanks to the free online portal.
Full Internet access via Wi-Fi will become available via Pay-As-You-Go
and other commercial models,.
---/quote---

On 15/03/2012 09:54, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:35:03 -0700 (PDT), Offramp
wrote:

Will this mean all Londoners buying a Pay as you go Virgin Sim?
I think it will!

Not all of them - if you're on Virgin already you'll not be changing.
If people only want travel info then they'll get that for free. It
will be interesting to see what the scope of that "travel info" will
be - tube? bus? rail?

As a Virgin mobile customer I'm quite happy to see this deal as being
able to check ahead for bus departure info will be very helpful.

As a non-Virgin mobile customer, I'd like the free travel info portal to
provide as much info as possible, obviously!

Access to Countdown / Live Bus Departures would be great, as would
access to National Rail Live Departure Boards - the latter is perhaps
less likely as it isn't something that's currently offered via the TfL
site. Hopefully it'll at least offer TfL Journey Planner, which would be
useful for checking NR train times whilst on journeys deep into the
centre of the earth.


What is slightly odd is that LUL's contract for its staff is with
O2 - which must be feeling as cold as liquid oxygen at the moment.

Does this mean that Virgin is going to replace O2 as LUL's mobile
provider?

I doubt it as I'd expect the contracts to be completely different in
scope and timescales. At some point I'd expect the mobile contract to
be retendered but that should be an open competition across suppliers.
AIUI Virgin use the T Mobile network for mobile coverage so I'd be
surprised if they were to tender for a mobile contract.

Yep, Virgin is an MVNO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator

In article ,
(Chris Blunt) wrote:

On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:27:42 +0000, Mizter T wrote:

The contract is only for ticket offices, escalators and platforms
because it would have required major construction work to have added
connectivity to the network's tunnels.

A pity they seem to have ruled out connectivity within the
tunnels/trains themselves. Subway systems in other parts of the world
have been able to achieve this, apparently without too much
difficulty.

Subway systems in the rest of the world don't operate in 12ft diameter tube
tunnels.

--
Colin Rosenstiel