From next year, you’ll finally be able to use your phone on the tube

Say hello to streaming, WhatsApping, and calling your mum underground – and goodbye to frantically trying to connect to the station wi-fi every time you pull into a platform. TfL announced this morning that after much anticipation, 4G phone signal will be rolled out to the deep-level tunnels of the tube in March 2020.

However, don’t get too excited/scared unless you travel on the whooshy Jubilee line. As befits the most space-age of London’s tube lines, it’ll be the first service to get 4G throughout its tunnels – and only between Westminster and Canning Town, as part of the initial trial period. All stations along this stretch of the line will also get full 4G service by the end of 2020.

So what about the rest of the network? Well, once the trial on the Jubilee is finished, the other 10 lines will follow by ‘the mid-2020s’, according to TfL – by which time we’ll probably be on, like, 6G or something. And as well as letting you message your mates about how hungover you are, the new infrastructure should let the emergency services communicate underground better than ever before. So that’s pretty handy.

Seriously, though, call your mum.

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