Boris Johnsonmayoral hopes for a mobile phone network London is installed on the underground in time for the Olympic Games 2012 has been dashed.
Transport for London and mobile operators including 02, Vodafone, everything everywhere, and 3 the French engineering firm Thales, agreed to abandon the project financing issues and technical complexity in order to install the system in time.
Huawei, the Chinese network equipment supplier who would donate £ 50 m of equipment for wire network up as a contribution from one Olympic nation to another, while the mobile networks will pay for 3 G networks is installed.
The decision to ditch the project will be a disappointment for the capital's conservative mayor, who said earlier this year that while some tube users would have reservations for people to be able to use their mobile phones on the underground network, it was "road".
Other capitals, including Paris, already mobile phone signals across their underground network.
Johnson, however, had warned Londonernes not to "count their chickens" during the service in place in time for the games because the project would be both commercially and technically difficult to deliver.
City Hall insisted the project remained a "long-term goal", pointing out that a separate plan to install Wi-Fi on 120 tube stations in time for the games would go ahead.
Transport for London said: "the Mayor and TfL made it clear that, since the financial pressure on Tfls, any solution budgets would have to be financed through mobile operators with free of charge to the price of the ticket or the taxpayer.
"The parties were not able to agree a viable proposal, and the project does not have come at this time."
Vodafone confirmed that talks for underground mobile phone access had fallen. A statement said: "we have worked closely with infrastructure partners and London Underground for some time with the hope of delivering mobile services to the … underground and is disappointed that it would not be possible in time for next year's Olympic Games.
"As a group, we will continue to positively explore all other available opportunities for us to provide a service at a later time."
A spokesman for Johnson, said: "we are happy for those companies, which explored the possibility of having full mobile coverage in the tube, although disappointed the genuine problems could not be overcome by this opportunity.
"It remains a long-term objective, but in the meantime, our efforts will be focused on ensuring a greater expansion of Wi-Fi coverage in the tube stations in time for the Olympic Games.
"We are proceeding with great energy and urgency to deliver this improvement, which means Londonernes can then use their mobile devices to intercept their e-mails or access the Internet at the same time, passes through our stations."
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