back to article Chunnel mobile available – but only while heading towards UK

Channel Tunnel passengers heading to the UK will get mobile coverage, but those heading abroad will remain incommunicado until the British operators get their act together. French operators Bouygues Telecom and Orange SFR have agreed a deal with Eurotunnel to extend both networks into the northbound track, but despite starting …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Tom 7

    Is it one way so people on their way home

    cant phone their friends and tell them not to bother?

    1. LarsG

      Re: Is it one way so people on their way home

      It was the last refuge of peace and quite from having to listen to unimportant people making unimportant phone calls thinking they are important.

  3. jai

    the first of many perhaps?

    How many other thing that were supposed to be completed and in place before the Olympics are going to end up being completed at a later date, I wonder?

    It's bloody typical of this country.

  4. It wasnt me
    Meh

    Should we read:

    "that commercial agreement remains something of a sticking point "

    as

    "U.K. Operators are not interested unless there is a way of monetizing it beyond the inclusive minutes tariffs"

    I bet that is just it. The greedy bastards just want to charge airplane rates.

    1. Bob H
      Pint

      Re: Should we read:

      They could grant a three month trial to Three or they should just sign up a few of the low-rent MVNOs like Tesco Mobile. If Three had coverage somewhere no one else did then it would be comic, although I think the roaming agreement with Three would complicate things with EE.

      Added bonus that it will scare the crap out of the major networks enough to get them to agree.

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Should we read:

      They would make their money from the data roaming fees charged to any Frogs or other foreigners who feel the need to announce on Twitter and Facebook that they are now in the Tunnel.

    3. crowley

      Femtocells?

      Couldn't they install femtocells to suck in every call and pipe each via broadband to the appropriate operator, after negotiating with OFCOM for a mandate to rake the investment back by charging standard operator end-point fees?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not ready for the Olympics? It's as ready as it needs to be as far as I can see.

    Who is going to be on their way to the Olympics and be travelling away from England?

    1. dotdavid
      Stop

      Olympics

      Personally, I think a phrase like "ready for the olympics" should also cover those who want to escape the capital for the duration, don't you?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Olympics

        @dotdavid

        Yes I do...but escaping London to be with the French (even for a short amount of time) isn't anything you'd want to call home about.

    2. Chad H.

      Err

      You do realise all these spectators have to go home sometimes, right?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Err

        You mean that damn-foreigners will be allowed into the games?

        Nobody mentioned anything about that - these were supposed to be the "London Olympics"

        Where's my monocle - I must write tot he Telegraph about this !

      2. Shaun 1

        Re: Err

        Yes, but by that point, they'll be leaving, so who cares about them?

  6. TeeCee Gold badge
    Mushroom

    Easy answer.

    Get Eurotunnel to tell the British operators to get stuffed for being a bunch of abject, squabbling tossers and hand the other side to the froggy networks too.

    Then the UK operators can cry in perpetuity over all the roaming terminations that they're not getting from non-UK travellers and have hours of fun explaining to their local customers that the reason said customers are getting screwed both ways is due to their own monumental incompetance.

    The wages of sin are death. The wages of stupidity are being given the shaft....

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does it matter?

    How long is the train actually in the tunnel? Half an hour at the most? If so, who really needs mobile coverage?

    OK, maybe mobile internet is the reason rather than 'phone, but surely that would always have been an issue, not just something relevant to the Olympics?

    1. Chad H.

      Re: Does it matter?

      Well in this article, 8 hours.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Chad H.

        Well I suppose it would be handy if one were stuck in the tunnel for any length of time. I can't see that being a good reason for all this fuss, though. For normal cases the length of time in the tunnel is so short that I wonder what sort of fucked-up lifestyles the passengers have if they can't cope with being disconnected.

  8. zb

    Hardly surprising ...

    That the French have completed the deal while the Brits ar still deciding what they want. They finished the roads and station for the chunnel 20 years after it opened.

  9. martinwjordan

    Give it to the French

    If our asshole networks can't get it together, give it to the French. After all, Orange & T-Mobile are owned by France Telecom so we're half way there already.

    But seriously, if none of them can strike a deal - strike somewhere else... that's business

    1. dotdavid
      Coat

      Re: Give it to the French

      Strike. Heh, good one.

    2. Chad H.

      Re: Give it to the French

      T-Mobile is owned by the Germans.

      Which just makes Everything Everywhere Ironic.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Leaky cable

    "linked by a leaky cable" - surely this isn't the best idea inside an undersea tunnel...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: Leaky cable

      A "leaky" cable is a cable that leaks RF. It has slots in it to allow a precisely controlled amount of RF out (and in) - think of it as the radio equivalent of a soaker hose in your garden. You put it on the inside of the tunnel where the people are (and the air is), not the outside where the fishes and water are.

  11. Chris Miller

    Cue Dom Joly

    Diddy-dum-dum, diddy-dum-dum, diddy-dum-dum-DA. Diddy-dum-

    "HELLO?"

    "WHAT?!"

    "I'M IN THE CHUNNEL"

    "NO, IT'S RUBBISH"

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Point Proven

    The English are rubbish at most things.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Ultimate Hell

    Being stuck in the tunnel for hours, with a carriage full of people telling everybody about it.

    No, wait, there's far worse...

    With a carriage full of people having the business conversations they were travelling have ...there and then, on the phone.

  14. Daniel Hill
    Go

    Going both ways

    Have they considered the fact that, while each bore of the tunnel is normally used in one direction, they are both bi-directionally signalled and there are two crossovers within the tunnel that allow trains to switch between them.

    This feature was used extensively when repairing the fire damage down there, but I believe it is also occasionally used when engineering work needs to be carried out on one section of the tunnel.

    This could result in passengers hopping from French networks, to English networks to French networks again (and vv) without warning!

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like