UK and French carriers working on cellular coverage for Channel Tunnel, aim to finish by 2012 Olympics

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If you live in a technophile city like Taipei, you'll have been
enjoying underground 4G for a long time now, but in London the rule is
that you have to bid adieu to your mobile connectivity when diving
into a tunnel. The city's Mayor has been active in encouraging
(forcing?) the major British carriers to install the necessary
equipment to provide coverage on the Tube, and now we're hearing that
ambition has stretched beyond the nation's borders as well. The Daily
Telegraph reports that Vodafone, O2, Everything Everywhere, and Three
from the UK along with Orange, SFR and Bouygues from France have
agreed to share the cost of putting together a £20 million
($30.8m) project for making cellular coverage possible while traveling
through the 31.4-mile Channel Tunnel between the two countries. The
goal is to get things up and running by the Olympics in 2012, though
we've no indication as to what speeds those wireless data transfers
will reach. Still, having some bars is better than none, right?