Gautrain and the Gauteng transport MEC has announced that their 80km rail system will have end-to-end cellphone coverage by July 2014. TAT TA DADAA!
That’s not an announcement. That’s a fucking apology.
July 2014? Hello, it’s 2012 now. Their lame excuse is one of needing to test that the cellphone systems don’t interfere with the train systems or some kak. Now forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but those same cellphone systems and signals are already active in the air around the train when it is above ground. So are they saying the Gautrain control systems have never been tested in the vicinity of GSM/3G signal but they operate the train anyway? What a honky pile of crap.
The cellphone companies need to wake the fuck up. By not having coverage of the underground portions of the line they are just losing revenue. The Gautrain people need to wake up – it doesn’t take a year and a half to cover 80km of train tracks with cellular signal, most of which is above ground.
South Africa Technology Fail. Embarrassing. They have had this in Hong Kong since 1993.
MTN, CellC, Vodacom, 8ta, stop being so pathetic.
One reply on “On the Gautrain getting Cellphone Coverage by 2014”
The same goes for the airline kak. They operate in a microwave radio zone (mobile phone band) too. The ICASA approval for radio devices is there to ensure there are no overlaps or interferences between radio spectrums.
But ignoring the technical mumbo jumbo, every flight has a number of phones left on inadvertently. Since they deem a nail clipper file to be a dangerous article which can’t be brought on board and is confiscated; if mobile devices were really dangerous, they would be banned and confiscated.
They real issue, is that radio planning on the part of the network operators, is a meticulous and sensitive occupation aimed at grounded devices i.e. they point the radio devices in specific directions to cater for people and their movements. This is optimised to deal with ground demand and air use would interfere with the delicate balance. Further, trying to cover the air specifically, would be even less profitable than the towers that are mandated to cover the transitory national roads.