How do you Tube? London’s Underground commuters usually fall into one of six categories. There are the faithful bookworms and the head-bobbing airpod enthusiasts. The offline Twitter scrollers whose fingers scramble for wi-fi at every station. There are those who turn their phone sideways to catch up on pre-downloaded shows (and those who watch discreetly over their shoulders). There’s the no phone, no music, no book, just-stare-type of commuters. And of course, there’s the superior commuter, the Evening Standard reader. How many types of traveller can you spot today?
Last week, Transport for London announced plans to bring high-speed mobile coverage to the entire Tube network by the end of 2024. We’ve been able to connect to the internet underground for some time already — since 2012, in fact, when it was introduced prior to the London Olympics — but to have full access (wi-fi, 4G and 5G) will change our experience entirely.
Missed an impromptu Zoom call? Sorry, I was underground. That text that “never sent”? An uncomfortable phone call that cut off halfway through? Running significantly later than you said? All can be blamed on the world’s oldest underground railway. Access-all-areas wi-fi will strip us of one of our few escape routes from the world above ground.
In 2023, the Tube remains one the few places in the capital where you have the option to disappear
In 2023, the Tube remains one the few places in the capital where you have the option to disappear. And while some people are hungry for the small windows of signal between odd stations, others revel in those golden minutes where you become uncontactable, untraceable, un-botherable.
More wi-fi also means more noise. The sound of the Underground will become far more than rattling windows and a Girls Aloud banger from 2003. Our buses are proof that people have no qualms about keeping virtual meetings to themselves or blasting last night’s Love Island for all to hear.
At present, the Tube is a sacred space of awkward eye contact, screeching wheels, a hi-hat in someone’s headphones and our inner monologues trying to guess where others have been or are journeying to. It will be a shame to lose that.
