As ever with Boris’s announcements, yesterday’s news of “free” WiFi for Tube passengers isn’t all it appeared to be.
City Hall’s press release claimed:
“A contract has been awarded to Virgin Media to provide public access Wi-Fi at up to 120 Tube station platforms at zero cost to the fare or taxpayer.”
But that not really true.
Fare payers WILL have to pay for access because the service will become chargeable to users after a few weeks. Unless Boris is planning to increase the amount of fare dodgers on the Tube network, everyone who pays Virgin Media will be a fare payer.
What the press release really means is that in return for fitting a few travel information screens, something we might think to be London Underground’s responsibility, Boris has granted Virgin Media an apparent monopoly concession to sell its web services to passengers.
But the web access you receive for your money will be pretty limited. The service is only guaranteed to work within stations, once you’re on the Tube you’re likely to lose your signal.
So what Boris is really offering you is the chance to buy some WiFi while you wait for your tube. With the average wait between trains being a few minutes, the only time it’ll be worth paying is when your Tube is seriously delayed.
UPDATE: I’ve posted TfL’s answers to a series of questions about the contract.
Tom says
I’d question ‘zero cost to the taxpayer’, to, given that there’s a project with an approved expenditure of north of 10m quid for ‘London Underground WiFi Phase 2’. LU-PJ708 is the project number.
LU-PJ708 Stations Wi-Fi Phase 3
Financial Authority
in Business Plan
1
£10,996k
Previous Project
Authority Granted
£4,564k
Total Project
Authority Granted
£16,494k
Estimated Final
Cost
£16,494k
Authority
Approval
Additional project authority of £11,930k was granted following a
Corporate Gate D review. The difference between the authority and the
funding in the Business Plan is the anticipated receipt of income from
the concessionaire.
Outputs
and
Schedule
Project authority has been granted to deliver the third phase of the
Stations Wi-Fi programme.
This phase seeks to complete the following,
• Installation of infrastructure at 87 additional London Underground
stations to increase the total to 121.
• The concessionaire contract Invitation to Tender responses were
returned on 7 December 2011 and the contract is expected to be
awarded in February 2012 to enable Wi-Fi access to the public.
• This generates an initial payment from the concessionaire, non-fares
revenue and increased efficiency of operational staff through
improved access to real time information.
The majority of the stations are due to be complete by the 2012 Games