Olympic Tube phone plan dropped

Plans to build a mobile phone network on London Underground in time for the Olympic Games have been abandoned.

The UK’s four mobile operators -- Everything Everywhere, O2, Vodafone and 3 -- said they had concluded it would not be possible to build the network in time for the Olympics starting next July. One person familiar with the plans said the logistics of constructing a mobile network on the Tube had proved extremely difficult, partly because the work could only take place for a limited period during the night when trains were not running. This person also said the Tube tunnels were small, which would further complicate the task of putting network infrastructure into them.