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Mobile phone reception comes to underground Gautrain stations

With some Gautrain stations being up to 50 meters underground, chatting on a mobile phone becomes incredibly difficult, if not virtually impossible.

But from today, Vodacom and MTN are enabling its customers to make and receive calls while underground with a setup of distributed antenna systems located throughout the three stations.

The stations covered are Sandton, Rosebank and Park Station.

“Making these facilities available represents the first phase of a much broader engineering project which will see the installation of additional technical infrastructure that will extend across the entire Gautrain route,” MEC for Roads and Transport, Dr. Dr Ismail Vadi said in a media statement.

Although mobile coverage has been extended  to the underground stations, Vadi said that the next step would be to give extra coverage to the train tunnels.

“The next step will be to allow for the improvement of voice and data coverage in the Gautrain tunnels and along the entire route. Discussions are currently underway with the Mobile Network Operators in this regard and we cannot put exact timelines on the roll-out thereof,” Vadi said.

Vodacom explained that its systems are connected to a fibre-optic cable to network equipment located in Rosebank, and provides 2G, 3G, and LTE (4G) connections.

“This is the first phase of the process. Our next task is to work on ensuring that we have a seamless service throughout the Gautrain route. That means not dropping a call when you go into a tunnel. We’re currently in talks with our partners to roll this out,” said Vodacom

There is however, still no word on when WiFi will be made available.

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