Helsinki metro to get free WiFi

I have been traveling all this week in the London Underground, which is an amazing piece of engineering (and a surprise it runs at all, considering the complexity). However, once you go underground, there is no phone connectivity: no voice, no SMS, no data. Nothing.

Even if the Helsinki metro has only one line and pales to near-transparency when compared with the London Underground, at least it has cell phone connectivity in all stations and even in the tunnels. And now, they're gonna open a free WiFi (Finnish) connectivity in the metro - including the tunnels. According to the article, this is even really cheap to build: just a few hundred euro per station.

Makes me wonder - what are the kind of services you would offer to a metro traveler?




Comments

the whole metro route only takes much less than 30 min to travel, no? for me the ride was usually not more than 5 minutes - definitely not enough time to whip the laptop. wifi with mobile device would make most sense...

--jabberer, 09-Sep-2007


Yes, the longest trip is about 30 minutes. (Of course, people with Macs do have enough time to whip out their laptop - these babies wake up in seconds ;-)

Seriously; it might be useful for devices which are online in the background.

--JanneJalkanen, 09-Sep-2007


In the case of the underground, I think they're too busy trying to find a way for travellers not to faint in the summer. It's ill advised to take it in the height of August unless you have your trusty bottle of water with you. Older people would just have strokes. They've tried and had international engineering competitions, to no avail.

--Alex, 09-Sep-2007


Ten minutes of connectivity would allow for a update download of the newest podcasts on a mobile device - like you said, probably those ones that could be instantly connected work best

--Tuija, 09-Sep-2007


But how would that be different from having downloaded them at home already?

--JanneJalkanen, 09-Sep-2007


Test myfunction comment

--TestName, 21-Sep-2007


Test myfunction comment

--TestName, 21-Sep-2007


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"Main_blogentry_090907_1" last changed on 09-Sep-2007 00:40:10 EEST by JanneJalkanen.