Eurotunnel completes the mobile telephony offer in Channel Tunnel, 100 metres below sea level

Eurotunnel and the British mobile telephone operators EE (formed following the merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK) and Vodafone have today signed a 10 year agreement to offer mobile services in the Channel Tunnel. Customers of both operators will have access to 2G¹ and 3G² services in the North Tunnel (UK to France)³. Both EE and Vodafone intend to offer 4G data services throughout the tunnel in the future.

Copyright – Eurotunnel

This will enable passengers of both Le Shuttle and high speed passenger trains to use their mobile phone or tablet device at any point of the journey through the Channel Tunnel. The quality of communication will be equivalent to a call made in Paris, London or anywhere above ground.

Providing such a wireless service 100 metres below sea level for the 20 million passengers who travel through the world’s longest undersea tunnel each year is a first. In order to deliver this service, Eurotunnel and its partners have overcome a series of technical challenges: the work was conducted without disruption to railway traffic, in a confined environment under stringent safety conditions.

Eurotunnel has equivalent agreements with the French mobile operators, Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR which cooperated for the successful installation of GSM-P services in the South Running Tunnel in 2012.

Eurotunnel’s ambition to continually improve the service it offers to its customers has brought an answer to the increasing need for connectivity on the move.

References

1. GSM 900, DCS 1800
2. UMTS 2100
3. The mobile service will go live in the North Running Tunnel – UK to France – in March this year.