Brit regulator finds mobile network service on trains is far from first class

Train travellers are poorly served by the UK’s mobile networks, says Ofcom. Tests on railway lines in England, Scotland and Wales revealed disappointing signal across 24 rail segments, with results falling short in 83 percent of cases. The communications regulator is now calling for a nationwide effort to raise the standard of …

[nobody who matters]

"Poor signals on trains is a regular customer frustration that the mobile industry, Government and train operating companies have long struggled to address."

This is a problem that is entirely down to the mobile industry, and is a countrywide problem that affects everyone, not just those travelling by train.

Train companies cannot be expected to provide wifi to passengers if the mobile operators are not providing a usable signal in the first place.

The root of the problem is city based politicians, regulators and mobile operator management who seem to have a complete inability to understand that there are large swathes of the country away from towns and cities where mobile signals are sporadic, unreliable or non-existant. Collectively closed minds.

[Andy The Hat]

Can't stream video on a train ... "The on-board service also used older standards, typically Wi-Fi 4 or 5."

Wi-fi 5 is now "an old standard"? Try telling that to most wi-fi routers ...

Hell I can't stream stuff at home without a landline ... although I admit to not knowing what the actual bandwidth is of phone semaphore at the bottom of the garden to try to grab any any-G signal to send a text ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking for myself and I am unanimous in this, I would rather have a comfortable seat than wifi. GWR may be testing starlink and Formula One technology but they also have the most uncomfortable seats of any I have sat on in a UK train.

[Tron]

Seats.

EMR made a big fuss of their new trains a couple of years ago, but the very high seats, very close together, are horribly clasutrophobic.

Incidentally, I never had any trouble getting a signal via pocket WiFi in Japan, speeding along in a shinkansen faster than anything the UK has (or will ever have).

Bigger problems than net coverage and even seats, the number of trains post-covid seems inadequate, made worse by seat bookings. I'd rather stand all the way and get there, than be told the few trains were full. They don't even give you a free box to sleep in until you can travel the next day.

There is so much wrong with our rail network now, it comes down to personal preference as to what is the biggest problem.

Another thing we led the world in and now fail at.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Seats.

> EMR made a big fuss of their new trains a couple of years ago, but the very high seats, very close together, are horribly claustrophobic

That's assuming that the doors don't jam* and you reach your destination, the class 810's are having torrid reliability issues.

* other failure modes are also available..like drivers key getting jammed in door lock!

[kingofphones]

GWR seats are unspeakably bad.

I've even considered packing a cushion. I have a regular journey of 2 hours+ and it's awful.

[JimboSmith]

Re: GWR seats are unspeakably bad.

I've even considered packing a cushion. I have a regular journey of 2 hours+ and it's awful.

I do take a cushion on their trains because the seats are so bloody awful. I’ve had some funny looks but once people realise there is no padding anymore, they’re looking more in envy.

[Anonymous Coward]

The initial order of 80x trains from Hitachi all had those shit seats - they're made by Fainsa and designed for commuter services, not long-distance trains. This was (surprise, surprise) a result of government interference and deciding to penny-pinch where they shouldn't (the paid way over the odds elsewhere). Because Hitachi would have surcharged for a change to the specifications of subsequent orders for the same basic train, the end result is that GWR, LNER, Transpennine and Hull Trains all ended up with them. In addition to being generally shit from new, the seats also have base cushions which collapse after a while of use. GWR were the first fleet in use, so the seats in those went this way first, but it's going to affect all of them.

Modified versions of the same basic train design ordered later have different seats due to the levels of criticism - so Lumo and Avanti. The EMR new trains (which are very, very late entering service) are a different design (although still Hitachi). and have seats which are allegedly better. I can't comment as not been on one yet..

[Anonymous Coward]

They’ve only just found this out ??

Another fail for 5G to solve.

[Colin Bull 1]

You could not make it up

Who would thought an internet connection on a train passing through cell sites every few minutes would not be problematical.

Ofcom would be better off DOING something about millions of people that have these problems 24 hours every day

Oftom would be better off DOING something about the SPOOF calls I have every day that contravene TPS, GDPR and ICO regulations.

I suppose they have a few extra minutes a day to dish out this crap because they offload their hard decisions to AI

[localzuk]

Re: You could not make it up

Come now, Ofcom doesn't actually do things. They write reports. And letters. Then ministers make lots of noise about pilot schemes, and then the entire thing is forgotten again until the next report.

[xyz123]

Re: You could not make it up

They DO however take bribes. How else you think the head staff there have multi-million pound houses and yachts well beyond their salaries?

[MachDiamond]

Re: You could not make it up

"Ofcom doesn't actually do things. They write reports. And letters."

Don't they also hire consultants to "do studies" and a few million a go?

[AndrueC]

Re: You could not make it up

Oftom would be better off DOING something about the SPOOF calls I have every day that contravene TPS, GDPR and ICO regulations

I think it would be worth your while reviewing your own phone habits. I get one, perhaps two, spam calls or messages a year. If you're getting that many every day it seems like it's something to do with you.

[David Hicklin]

Re: You could not make it up

> I think it would be worth your while reviewing your own phone habits. I get one, perhaps two, spam calls or messages a year

All it takes is for your number to get on a list and you will be spammed with spoof calls.

[IvaliceResident]

Re: You could not make it up

Ofcom care more about age verification and fining small community forums than about mobile coverage these days.

[Korev]

Last year I needed to travel back to the UK with fixed dates. I'd done the journey before on the aeroplane and got surprisingly little work done (contractor said paid by the hour). I thought I'd try taking the railway instead so I can a) work longer, b) enjoy it more and c) have a nice lunch in Paris[0].

In the end I found I could work well on the TGV and in the Eurostar terminal in Paris. Surprisingly, I could also do work in most of the Chunnel. Once the train was in Kent it kept dropping, south of London I found it to be unusable. Overall, I made a "profit" as I could work more than whilst flying which more than made up for the extra cost[1]. Had the signal been better then I would have been able to work more.

[0] Where the hell is the Paris icon when I need her?

[1] I can see how the Paris - London leg could attract a premium price, but coming from the rest of France is a lot less convenient than flying. If we're going to cut CO2 emissions then surely the cost of doing journeys like these need to fall

[MachDiamond]

"Last year I needed to travel back to the UK with fixed dates."

You had to have an internet connection to get any work done? Sounds like a position fit for AI to do.

[vogon00]

Not a right at all.

“People rightly expect connectivity they can count on"

They have a 'right' to expect reliable connectivity...but only if it is wired or the backhaul does not involve cellular data.

To expect a train full of users to use the local Wi-Fi and squeeze all that traffic down the narrow 'pipe' that is the cellular connection is not sane really.

A while back, train Wi-Fi used to be backhauled by a box that had links to each cellular operator, and could - in theory - always obtain some sort of connectivity and do some traffic sharing. These days, where people use way more data than (Ever seen someone struggle with a zoom call on the train?) I think it's unreasonable to expect a useable connection all the while...it's just not sustainable.

ISTR reading some of the train operators are gonna trial backhauling their Wi-Fi over a Starlink or similar satellite service. That will help with the speed issue, but will still suffer from interruptions.

So who's 'fault' is this? It's the people who market the services to punters and b2b....lies may be too strong a word, but talking things up to the extent they do is setting unreasonable expectations that *nobody'* could live up to. That, and Joe Public* doesn't know enough the see through the bullshit. Come to think of it, business people believing their own or others 'hype' is a factor too. I cannot count the times I've heard marketing or biz dev types having a conversation that is entirely 'fluffy' with no grounding in reality!

“People rightly expect connectivity"? That's pretty dumb, IMO. No, it's not right to expect it. Yeah, it's pretty necessary for modern day life, but not to the point where it's a right. Sales&marketing have been giving unreasonable expectations to customers for years. Looks like to current generation actually *believe* it!

_{I'm with Sid Vicious when it comes to dealing with Joe}

[xyz]

You have working trains?

I'm shocked.

[Korev]

Re: You have working trains?

Are you living in Germany?

[that one in the corner]

So THAT explains

why they are always SHOUTING ON THEIR PHONES "I'M ON THE TRAIN![1]".

Because the louder you shout the more electricity goes into the data packet and further from the train it can get; that is how all this works, isn't it?

[1] always want to hear the other end reply "WHAT?! You are supposed to be on the ferry!"

[Yamosu]

Does it matter?

"The problem is down to weak mobile signal strength along rail corridors, which can be further attenuated by certain types of rail carriage, Ofcom says."

The Portsmouth Direct Line is particularly poor in my recent experience (EE), whilst the South Western Mainline between Southampton and London is OK.

A number of years ago (maybe 10 and a bit?) I used to regularly travel from London to Nottingham from St Pancras. The 4G was a bit ropey in places but it was usually good enough unless I was on a class 222, then it was unsuable or nonexistent. I found out years later that the class 220s and 221s are just as bad - suspect there is something about the design of those units. I feel sorry for the long distance travellers on CrossCountry. Crammed in like sardines and little no phone signal to boot. Lovely!

It would be nice to have a good 5G SA signal along all railway lines but the cost would be exorbitant and as long as there are patches where you can send a few messages, what difference does it make? Read a book, look out the window or something!

[DJO]

Re: Does it matter?

...Read a book, look out the window or something!...

Apparently in GB the average journey is around 40 minutes. If people can't disconnect for a little while, I think they really need to look at their life choices.

[John Robson]

Re: Does it matter?

Some people (and I used to) consider the commute part of the working day.

I used to watch the world go by on my local train, sit in the cafe and work at the connecting station until the train showed up for the longer leg, then I'd carry on working on the train. Get to the destination and ride along the riverbank to the office.

So I'd get about 90 minutes work done, as well as a few miles cycling, and a 15 minute "looking out of the window".

Didn't do that trip every day, but it made a significant difference to the timings and amount of work.

[DJO]

Re: Does it matter?

... then I'd carry on working on the train...

Presumably on a laptop, probably a document or spreadsheet that would already be on the hard drive so for the vast majority of cases where people do some work on a train, connectivity is not really all that important. Helpful yes, essential, no. People were working during commuting long before anybody considered the possibility of internet connections on a train.

I do understand if you are using live data a connection is required but that would apply to an insignificantly tiny minority of commuters who probably shouldn't be accessing the data in a public place anyway.

If you need funny cat videos in 4K you might be disappointed but a crappy connection is enough to deal with looking stuff up online.

[John Robson]

Re: Does it matter?

Mostly on stuff that was local, although by no means all of it was, and this is quite a while ago. I used a PAN from my phone (that really dates it quite a bit) for connectivity.

[PB90210]

Re: Does it matter?

Victoria to East Croydon, is 18mins and 2 stops 'fast' or around 25mins and 8-ish stops on a slow train... and that's through the middle of town

Surprisingly it's the 'best'!

[MachDiamond]

Re: Does it matter?

"If people can't disconnect for a little while, I think they really need to look at their life choices."

If it's your business or you are a lawyer billing by the second, why the kicking and screaming that you can't work on the train (without internet)? Is the company paying for that time? Will they even notice you are doing extra credit work during your commute?

I was helping a friend research starting up a specialty food company and we traveled across the US to a trade show to find out about machinery, packaging and loads of other things. On the way out, we planned our visits at specific vendors and spent time on the return trip going through the info we had a making notes. A couple of times we looked things up online when we had signal, but got lots done with no service the rest of the time. Taking the train gave us the time to do work over all of the faffing about it takes to go by air. We could grab a table in the observation car to spread out laptops, brochures and notepads where on a plane, both of us would be stuffed into seats too small for us to be in, much less work. It was a brilliant trip and a bit sad as he was diagnosed with cancer not too long after that and died of chemo before he would have retired and started his food business which he would have done well with.

There are some things these days where having access to the internet is important, but if that's not guaranteed, it's not that hard to accomplish other things that don't need it.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Does it matter?

Voyagers and their derivatives have metallised windows which reduce glare and also the rest of the EM spectrum.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Might as well set up a moble clacks tower atop the carriage

Would be about as reliable.

I don't think Moist von Lipwig had thought up that scam service for the discerning traveller but then his missus was the organ grinder in that partnership.

Does anyone else have the sense that we are living in a world that is "evolving" in the opposite direction to Anhk·Morpork? We are somewhere between Lord Snapcase and Lord Winder at this point. At least in the UK any question of Raising Steam is moot; even raising a loan is doubtful.

[xyz123]

i went to London from Edinburgh via LNER.

On the way TO London, carriage G was "first class". Tickets were £400 more than normal.

On the way FROM London carriage H was 'first class'. G was now Economy. They'd literally moved the little seatback hankies from one carriage to another. Thats it. Same seating, same everything.

Same train. I even recognized scratch marks on the outside of one of the carriages!

So basically you can pay £400 extra to temporarily have a tiny "first class" hanky draped over the back of your seat! No extra food, no benefits whatsoever other than a snot rag you can't even keep.

[takno]

A couple of small points:

- The class which isn't First is called Standard, not economy.

- LNER first class has completely different seats in first class

- LNER doesn't have antimacassars (or "hankies") on the first class seats

- LNER has substantial free catering in First class, which is generally quite difficult to miss

- There are no LNER trains where coach G is first class

- While most Edinburgh-London trains have first class in coach H, it's only half the coach with the other half being standard

- The most expensive Edinburgh-London ticket in first class is £327, which is, according to my calculations, not £400 more than normal

Are you sure you didn't accidentally get a Flixbus?

[PeeTee]

Way back, on the Paddington-Penzance, I got an upgrade from standard to first - seats were wider but hard and very uncomfortable (and passengers less pleasant!), so I moved back to the far nicer seats in standard. This was in the early 2000s though; however I didn't need mobile data back then, and strangely I still don't.

[vogon00]

"This was in the early 2000s though"

I went interrailing in the mid 90s, and spent a pleasant 3 weeks whizzing around Europe on fast, clean and modern trains. Even the local trams and busses I used for the more local travel were excellent.

My 3 weeks came to an end, and I took a deliberate decision to return via Dover so I could see the famous white cliffs in all their glory, which I thought would be a nice welcome home....and it was. I was still in a good mood after customs etc., and got myself to Dover railway station for the trip home.

The train I caught was made up of carriages that were old, dilapidated, and quite dirty - you wouldn't have even put the badly behaved football fans of the era on board. What a welcome home, I thought....and then felt ashamed of the 'slap in the face' welcome we extended to people visiting Blighty for the first time. Strange, what you remember sometimes..

That said, my most recent use of the railway was last year, from home to Okehampton via Livepool Street and Exeter St. Davids. Things were much better - rolling stock wasn't bad, I had a seat and things ran on time.

[katrinab]

LNER have essentially 3 types of train:

Class 91 with Mark 4 coaches, typically 7 carriages

Class 800/1 or 801/2 trains with 9 carriages, the difference is that 800s have a diesel engine, 801s do not, they are both the same inside

Class 800/2 or 801/1 trains with 5 carriages, again the difference is whether they have diesel engines or not. These can sometimes be doubled up to form a 10 carriage train.

A coach G in each of these is not going to be the same type of carriage.

[MachDiamond]

Sleeper from Edinburgh to London advance purchase is £345 for the Club en-suite. It's usually faster and cheaper to get a seat during the day if you want to waste a day making the journey. Last minute bookings can be more if there's space.

[Chris Miller]

I don't need to be able to stream movies on a train journey - if I'm desperate to watch a film, I'll download it before setting off. What I do need is an internet connection that's fast enough to browse and send/receive emails, a few 100kbps should suffice, and is reliably available for the whole journey. it's worth remembering that a full train can have getting on for 1,000 passengers - there's never going to be enough bandwidth for even 50% of them to stream video.

[David Austin]

Agree; Web/email would be good enough.

Also anyone having a full on Zoom meeting in a train without a headset should be slung out of the window onto the nearest mailcatch hook.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

an internet connection that's fast enough to browse and send/receive emails, a few 100kbps should suffice,

and one where they downgrade TikTok, FB, Instagram etc. Why not discover the lost art of taking a book along to read during the journey?

One website I do find very useful to access when going on a train journey in the UK, both before and during the journey is:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk

[MachDiamond]

"Why not discover the lost art of taking a book along to read during the journey?"

I'm an audiobook fan myself. Could be sci-fi or a Hawking lecture. Lately I've been listening to a MIT course on microeconomics while I'm pottering around in the garden. If I were in a profession where there are recognized certifications, I'd be listening to lectures on that to pass those tests to use as leverage for a pay rise or promotion.

[MachDiamond]

"there's never going to be enough bandwidth for even 50% of them to stream video."

And, alas, many of them will try.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Mobile connectivity

I think the problem is obviously the "mobile" part

The new stationary train system will not only offer much better connectivity but will reduce noise, emitting much lower levels of CO2, while greatly increasing track utilisation and passenger customer density.

[elsergiovolador]

Range

On many trains in London I cannot get any internet from mobile network.

But this report sounds stupid. Give networks 6 months otherwise fine them few billions every year until it is improved.

Otherwise they can just print the report and piss on it.

[Idconsultants]

1.5 hours each way from East Kent to London. 5 days a week. 3x5=15 @ £50 per hour = £750 per week.

That's just me. Very conservatively say 2000 people in a similar position to me that £1.5 million a week.

52 weeks in a year: 78 million.

Can we not make it work please?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

If only the telegraph lines extended to Kent, millions of people wouldn't have to commute into central London to work on the business machine at the business factory.

[Anonymous Coward]

They needed a study and report to work this out?

[katrinab]

As far as I can see, the problem is that mobile networks are obliged to cover a certain percentage of the population, and while lots of people travel on trains, nobody lives on train tracks, therefore providing coverage on them doesn't contribute to them meeting their licencing conditions.

[captain veg]

in France

I used to quite frequently take the intercity between Paris and Toulouse. The train would stop at bigger towns along the way, approximately an hour apart, and that's the only time I could get any kind of mobile signal at all. These days I take the TGV instead, which has perfectly usable free WiFi, pretty much all the way somehow.

Something which puzzles me is how good the mobile signal is in the Paris metro. Much better, in fact, than on my overground commuter train in from the suburbs.

-A.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wifi? What wi-fi?

I frequently travel between Warrington and Glasgow / Edinburgh, first class as the business pays.

From experience, there is sod all wifi between Lancaster and Carlisle and the same from just North of Carlisle to the outskirts of Glasgow.

Quite often it will take anything up to 10 minutes and 4-5 attempts to send a text only email of a few lines.

Avanti West Coast use 11 coach Pendolinos and have standard, standard plus and first classes. Standard plus uses the same carriages as first class but you don't get food or drinks included in the price. Virgin were much better being a/ more punctual, and b/ the food and drink were better. Avanti are one of the worst performing train operators with only 40% of trains are on time (the definition meaning within 10 minutes of booked time!) I have more but this is a computer forum not a rail forum.

[MrGreen]

This must be a joke?

Ofcom have only just realised the mobile network and Wi-Fi doesn’t work on trains? This can’t be true because it’s been like this for years. In fact the mobile network is absolutely useless in many parts of the UK even when not on a train.

Yet isn’t it funny that all of these companies are still able to charge full price for services they’re not delivering.

Ofcom knows exactly how bad things are. They are part of the problem because they allow companies to measure their performance by “coverage” only. As an example, EE claims it has 99% coverage of the UK. Therefore your phone shows 4 bars of signal but you have zero “throughput”.

Other countries have fantastic mobile service and Wi-Fi on trains because they have a government that regulates for its citizens. The UK regulates for the elites. Therefore most services are a scam.

[MachDiamond]

"In fact the mobile network is absolutely useless in many parts of the UK even when not on a train."

The mobile networks are only going to put service in where there are enough paying customers that will pay for it. People always want more. There's moaning about having better service at the top of Ben Nevis so people can stream video of themselves live. If people want to pay £50/hr for premium service on trains, I expect operators would start making sure they could meet those demands. To expect that they'd add it for the 2 time periods per day most people would be using it, 5 days per week with no extra payment isn't rational. The train companies could work something out and just raise ticket prices to pay for it. Wouldn't that be great?

[Mishak]

Durham City Centre

A not insignificant University City, lots of students.

Most of the time it's "I've got 4 bars of 5G but nothing is happening" in the centre.

Move to the edges and it's one or two bars of "E" and nothing at all.

This is with O2, Vodafone, and Three so far. I'm not expecting EE to be any better.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Durham City Centre

"Most of the time it's "I've got 4 bars of 5G but nothing is happening" in the centre."

Of course. Everywhere you look there will be younguns neck deep in their phones. Gone is the old tradition of "chasing tail" when I was at Uni.

[Anonymous Coward]

If lack of a signal prevent a few twats from watching videos on their phones with the volume on full, then I'm all for doing nothing about the 'problem'!