Research by Global Wireless Solutions (GWS) have discovered that an astonishing 1-in-3 mobile internet tasks have failed, as well as 1-in-7 failed voice calls on London’s busiest rail commuter routes.
Dead zones
GWS have discovered that generally the mobile network overall is a mobile black-spot or mobile ‘dead-zone’ for consumers. The tests were conducted on the most popular rail routes in and out of London using the Samsung Galaxy S4 model with a variety of SIMs from the top UK mobile operators, Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three.
The routes tested were:
Charing Cross to Sevenoaks
Charing Cross to Dartford
Euston to Watford Junction
Fenchurch Street to Ockendon
Liverpool Street to Broxbourne
Liverpool Street to Manor Park
St Pancras to St Albans
St Pancras to Elstree and Boreham Wood
Victoria to Oxted
Waterloo to Epsom
Findings
What was discovered was a mixture of concern and surprise.
Along the routes it was apparent that EE, O2 and Vodafone all relied very heavily on the old 2G network for its data and voice transmissions.
2G has been around since 1991 and has since been super seeded by 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G and 4G. In built up areas the old 2G digital technology can suffer heavy over-loads and an increasingly large rates of drop-off calls. Thus most commuters that used the 2G network suffered bad quality service.
Other significant findings found that Three proved to be the best at providing voice connections, Vodafone was best at providing the most 3G connections and EE was the overall winner with the best 4G connection results.
Mapping
GWS compiled their findings on a set on interactive maps showing the areas of concern (marked in blue) on the network. We here at Fortune Frenzy have collated the data below.
Voice map
Interestingly enough voice calls proved much more likely to fail on open track rather than in a station and if the train travelled above 50 mph the signal was much more prone to be lost too.
St Pancras was the worst connected station with a massive average of 99 voice and data drop outs in and around its location from all the major networks.
3G map
Although it’s clear that EE dominated the 4G scores it was disappointed to have fallen behind Three in terms of 3G reliability. An EE spokesman stated that they take the 3G findings on board but they are also proud of coming out on top with the 4G ratings score.
4G Map
As with any new fledgling technology 4G was expected to have more drop-off points (as seen above) but the implementation of the technology itself can only be partly to blame. Actually getting the technology to work is a challenge as ensuring communication switch-overs between moving mobile devices within a train and static communication cell towers outside will need excellent coordination management from the cells.
Trains themselves also tend to deflect radio signals due to the materials they are constructed of and the situation becomes more complex at high speed. Locally hosted WiFi in the train which will then have its data converted to mobile data could be a solution but a costly one at that.
Even so, the UK and London in particular is falling behind to competition abroad most notably to Austria, Sweden and Norway who have managed to secure excellent mobile coverage to their customers which will be covered in another news piece.
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