EE and Three mobe mast surveyors might 'upload some virus' to London Tube control centre, TfL told judge Transport for London tried to block engineers and surveyors from EE and Three carrying out a survey for a new mobile phone mast by telling a judge they “might insert a USB stick into a computer” or “upload some virus”. The comments were made by a barrister acting on London Underground’s behalf when a dispute over rooftop …
Great now we have someone "official" (from TFL) mentioning the word virus in conjunction with a mobile mast. That will be picked up by the usual nutjobs I'm sure.
I wonder why everyone is "too busy" in TFL to have a person or two to chaperone said telco types (and ensure they don't make a beeline for the nearest USB socket).
There is likely to pretty much no time when that building doesn't have at least a skeleton crew running the place. Tube runs 24 hours on 5 underground lines on Friday and Saturday and even when the tube is shut down there will be a team in coordinating engineering work out of there. It's not like they're going to leave the place unguarded either, there's always going to be security bods hanging around.
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"Add to this... the article doesn't mention who owns the building. Apparently it's not TfL which probably could be in a better position to say "no"."
Paragraph 3, 1st sentence:The two mobile network operators wanted to send surveyors onto the roof of a TfL-owned office block in Southwark...
You're welcome.
What I don't get, (probably just me) is that the mobile companies feel that they can go round and survey people's building just like that. Nice tall building you got there, let's put a big mast on it....
Unless it's a case of a TfL bigwig saying go ahead to the mobile phone companies, but not told the people in the building to give permission or give them warning?
I have to admit, I am mildly bemused by this one, not least because the full sentence reads:
> The two mobile network operators wanted to send surveyors onto the roof of a TfL-owned office block in Southwark, as the first step to putting a mobile mast on the roof
So TfL have agreed to have a mast on the roof of this building (presumably for some suitable financial recompense), but have then turned around and decreed that the mobile network engineers can't actually survey the site to see if it's suitable?
Sounds like a classic case of left hand not meeting the right hand...
And if I was a betting man, I'd maybe flutter a fiver on the same happening again when it comes time to install said mast ;)
> No agreement from TfL is needed first as a consequence
Fair - I wasn't aware of this. Even so, I'd assume that if a telco is exercising it's legal rights to install a mast on a third party's building, it still needs to notify the third party in advance and get agreement on the compensation and anything else (e.g. access rights, making sure the mast is not a visual eyesore, etc).
Someone at TfL must have known that this was all going ahead!
> someone coming into the building might insert a USB stick into a computer and either download some critical information or upload some virus
You'd kind of hope that if this building really did contain some nationally (or just London?) important infrastructure, that the security surrounding that sensitive bit of floorspace would reflect its importance - and its vulnerability.
So that nobody could just "insert a USB stick" into something that was vital to keep power supplied to the Underground.
"Indeed. If a job isn't worth doing while accompanied by the "Mission: Impossible" theme music, then it simply isn't worth doing at all."
I find PropellerHeads On Her Majesty's Secret Service to be perfect for my telecoms network infiltration playlist, but YMMV.
Must dash, I can hear my ride home coming.
I wouldn't bet on that given that they can't sort out a mast with worse data rates on 4G than 3G on one particular beam (walk to other side of mast things work as expected, back to side a and speeds < 0.05mbps) They claimed congestion, said they had fixed it, lasted about an hour and went back to the way it was, asked them to get someone in the UK to speak to me so I could explain the issue and instead got random gibberish from Indian alledgedly second line support, so asked for PAC, tried a few different sims, Vodafone and O2 best signal, went with O2, online deal £12 a month for 12 months and 60GB data a month. works at around 10mbps up and down (better still next town over oddly)
> terrorists can throw USB sticks with the precision of knives throwers in movies
Yes. Even around corners, up flights of stairs and through locked doors.
There are even USB sticks made of ice, so that once they have delivered their evil, world-conquering payloads, they melt and leave no evidence.
You'd kind of hope that if this building really did contain some nationally (or just London?) important infrastructure, that the security surrounding that sensitive bit of floorspace would reflect its importance
As I recall, when TfL chose to relocate to the Palestra building it was felt that the availability of lights-out hosting facilities made it unnecessary to provide a computer room. I did hear a tale that this resulted in the equipment operating London's traffic lights becoming homeless as it required access and attention. One plan at the time was, I gather, to acquire nondescript private premises to accommodate it. I'm assuming that wasn't the full extent of the security measures.
Although if it were, you wouldn't want a surveyor stumbling on it by accident...
"I did hear a tale that this resulted in the equipment operating London's traffic lights becoming homeless as it required access and attention. One plan at the time was, I gather, to acquire nondescript private premises to accommodate it. I'm assuming that wasn't the full extent of the security measures."
Oh yes. The last thing you want is for some gang of cheeky criminals driving Mini Coopers to have access to the traffic light control systems.
It 's not just once though, is it ?
If they decide they want to put one there, there'll be disruption whilst it's installed and doubtless access required from time to time. And haven't compulsory site rental rates just been reduced, making a lot of people not want the hassle ?
The excuses are, I agree, a bit thin. But it's their roof. Why should they let someone build on it ?
Here in the USofA, mobile providers PAY the owners of the buildings a substantial sum every month for the space used (antennas on the roof or sides of the building, closet square footage for the radio and computer equipment, etc).
Does this not happen in the UK? Building owners aren't compensated at all?
My neighbor has a 200' tower on his property. It went up in the 90s for one mobile provider and he told me then that he was getting $1k/mo from them. There are now two more providers, plus some police and fire radios on the tower. I suspect he's getting upwards of $3k/mo from them.
Side benefit: we get excellent mobile signal strength :-)
Side disadvantage: For a while, we had interference problems with our garage door openers. Problems went away when they upgraded the equipment, which seems to happen every few years
A better excuse would have been that there was some aspect of the roof, e.g. constructional weakness, that would preclude any load increasing work to be carried out, or that running a transmitter close to the TFL equipment might be hazardous. Both are suspect suggestions.
Does TFL, (does it stand for Tragically Failing London?) even own the building?
No doubt the QC was paid good appeared money for their dubious comedy show.
I get it, people really dont want another bloody telco mast on their office's roof. Fine. But ffs, come up with some better excuses!
I mean this really could have been easy for TfL. 1) Let them have access, but charge them for requiring 1 security guard per person per day of the survey. 2) Impress upon them that they need to prove that there is ZERO chance of the transmissions of a mast on the roof affecting the network control computers or any other computers on site. With a detailed explanation of the costs involved should a single computer fail and take down part of the TfL network. As well as a detailed breakdown of how this would be communicated to the public and the media during the course of such an event (with, naturally, blame being apportioned as TfL deemed appropriate).
With such explanations made, even if the Roof proved to be the best mast site within 20km, I could almost guarantee that the Network operators wouldnt touch it with a 100 foot pole (or a telecoms mast for that matter!) for fear of the publicity involved in being blamed for any problems on the London transport network...
The transmit power is fairly low and highly directional. We had antennas on our office building and zero interference.
Additionally, the flat roofs of most commercial buildings are corrugated galvanised steel, grounded (earthed) for lightning protection, so they act as an excellent RF shield.
I would not be worried about interference to equipment. The same for human exposure. The RF field strength decreases as the inverse square, and the health & safety folks will do a field strength survey, I'm sure. Most of the energy is directed out away from the building anyhow, as that's where the mobiles are.
It'll probably be 1:r^1.2 ish, because there will be some out of plane dispersion making it not a pure 1/r, but you are right that it also isn't 1/r^2.
That actually makes the situation better though - since the power at the transmitter doesn't need to be as high to provide useful signal at the target locations.
And that of course is *why* they use non omnidirectional kit - lower power needed, lower cost.
>And that of course is *why* they use non omnidirectional kit - lower power needed, lower cost.
Actually, it's down to RF spectrum costs and user density. If you have an omni, all users in the vicinity need unique channels; with a 3-sector setup, you can reuse the bandwidth twice. Increase the sector count (decrease the angle) to increase available capacity.
But that's also why they use low power, but for a different reason - limit the range of a cell, and have another cell nearby, then you have more bandwidth in the same spectrum.
Just look at the spectrum auction costs to see their motivation!
"being blamed for any problems on the London transport network..."
Given that TfL seem intent on driving (no pun intended) all vehicles out of London, I often wonder if the "f" might not actually stand for "Free" - as in, Transport-free London. I don't think anyone - not even the most ardent hole-excavating utility companies - do as much to disrupt travel in the city as TfL.
They don't need to blame anyone. It's just business-as-usual to them.
If my mobile phone provider caused complete gridlock in London including roads, rail and that thing you call an Underground but mostly runs overground then sitting here in Glasgow I would give exactly zero shits. I suspect most of the rest of the UK would feel the same.
Btw our Underground actually runs 100% under the ground here.
"Come up with some better excuses!"
The best one I can think of is wind blowing through the ironwork setting up an aoelian harp and vibrating the entire fricking building
Might sound a bit far fetched but I've actually encountered something like this on building roofs transmitting vibrations into the floors below - In some cases only when the wind is blowing from a specific direction
I get it, people really don't want another bloody telco mast on their office's roof.
My office is on the 3rd floor of a 4 floor building. I do not care that there are phone masts and microwave relay things on it. I do not care when I go up to the 4th floor. It does nothing to me so it doesn't matter. I assume my employers get some rental but, as it doesn't even affect our WiFi, IDGAF.
If your running a secure site, it's much easier to keep it secure by telling people who want to visit "no" than trying to escort them.
I recall one account of a pen test where somebody visiting in guise of a pest control person managed to get access to a secure area escorted by a staff member who allowed them access to a server room, who asked them to keep away from the servers, only for the tester to produce a repro of a dead rat from "behind the server" (or up his sleeve...), at which point the escort stopped observing to the point that the tester was able to plug in their own device to the server to enable remote access to it.
So yes, left to my own devices i'd prefer to tell people that no access is permitted and I don't think that's even slightly unreasonable for a secure site.
Can Three etc sue TFL?
They've publicly stated they believe Three and other networks are a terrorist organization intent on doing damage to critical UK Infrastructure.
They should be made to apologize publicly, I'd say take down 50% of their billboards for the apology for 6months should be sufficient.
I consider this a non sequitur. After all, it would be libelous to claim that Apple is an organization intent on uploading private nude snaps and sex videos from people's iPhones to Facebook.
None the less, something of the sort happened recently - not because Apple wanted it to happen, but because some people repairing an iPhone on its behalf happened to engage in malfeasance on their own.
So they're only claiming that Three might not be 100% perfect at vetting their employees - and, since we haven't yet developed the technology to read people's minds, that is inevitably true.
I think the article didn't go into the required detail. The building freeholder would grant access and welcome mast rent. The leaseholder TFL won't allow physical. access. I'm pretty sure also that the lease terms if read carefully would establish that the leaseholder can be obliged to allow access for building-related issues.
Now that would put a bit of a different light on it.
However, perhaps not by much. After all, while normal lease terms might indeed preclude a leaseholder from denying physical access under such circumstances, I'm sure that if one were leasing a building to the GCHQ, they would be able to obtain special terms.
Why on earth would a law be enacted giving people the right to access someone else's building to build a cell phone mast?
If they want to put a cell phone mast on a building, they can always offer money to its owners. If they're not interested, that should be that.
Why would anyone think that compromising private property rights is a good idea?
... to one General Sir Anthony Hogmanay Melchett? They certainly say things that sound like the kind of things Melchett would say, cf:
"Security" isn't a dirty word Blackadder.
"Crevice" is a dirty word, but "security" isn't.
It's terrible what hundreds of years of inbreeding can do to the human mind.
Now, no doubt, they will be fretting over the tribunal judge pooh-poohing their claims about the risks of letting those horrible engineer and surveyor oiks into the building..
"next to the Thameslink tracks running between King’s Cross and London Bridge stations"
Actually it's next to the line to Charing Cross, which would be SouthEastern. There's a Thameslink line the other side of Gambia Street, but it doesn't go to London Bridge.
[removes anorak]
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