London started to get wifi, but it is unencrypted and you have to watch an ad before using it, by which time the train has arrived, so it has zero value.
If you pay or if you have a plan with a partner mobile carrier it saves your credentials and autoconnects. Other SSIDs like "EE-Auto" use EAP-SIM authentication.
Ah well they dont publicise that, and I don't think it is worth paying and I have no idea if I am with a partner but guess not.
Not my experience. I signed in once (can't recall watching an ad) and now any time a train enters a station with wifi it automatically connects. No ad and it usually connects quickly enough that I can load a page or refresh a feed while passengers get on/off.
I don't get why they don't roll out LTE in the tube. Would be so much more useful.
Why would it be more useful? If they offered LTE you would need an account with a wireless provider to be able to use it, which is probably not an option for tourists who would pay insane roaming fees. On the other hand with WiFi most wireless carriers offer WiFi calling anyway nowadays, so you're able to do anything that you could also do on LTE.
No tourist uses the wifi in the tube. It's abysmal and too expensive for that. Unless you live in London there is no point to subscribe to the wifi there. Also pretty irrelevant as an argument given the fact that roaming charges are dropping and that you can get prepaid sims everywhere.
Why not both. I bet carriers would love LTE in a subway metro. I use it for BART it works pretty well most of the time.
My first guess would be that wifi is accessible by a larger number of devices. A lot of people use tablets and e-readers on the tube and I'm sure quite a lot, maybe a majority of those, only support wifi.
Originally they did say they were going to do that, there were concept videos I saw of people making calls. But WiFi presumably paid them more.
Well it has value to the advertisers who got the opportunity to brainwash you into buying their products a bit.