Tweet, Like, Fan, Friend and Post from the London Underground

Today, London, England’s famous subway system – the Underground – became a Wi-Fi access point for the city’s commuters.

Or at least some of those commuters – Virgin Media is working with Transport London to wire about 80 station platforms, allowing Londoners to use their Wi-Fi-capable mobile devices while waiting for the next train.

Don’t worry, annoying ring tones won’t wake you on your morning commute – the Wi-Fi service is only available from station platforms, instead of trains – for now.

As we become increasingly more dependent on our Smartphones, tablets, laptops and just about anything else in our digital world, the ability to access these devices grows too.

And it makes sense to eventually expand Wi-Fi access from subway platforms to within the actual trains – who wants their game of Angry Birds suddenly cut off because the train arrives?

There has been talk in other cities of wiring their undergrounds so passengers on mobile devices could use those devices deep under our cities.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Boingo – love that name! – will be providing Wi-Fi access to its subscribers at subway platforms in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.

Over two years ago, Canada’s largest city started taking bids on wiring their subway stations too. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) began screening potential contractors to set up cell service across all 67 station platforms in Toronto, with an estimated roll-out by mid 2012.

Since that 2010 report, the TTC has not made any further announcements about this roll-out, which was supposed to happen around this time.

Maybe the efforts by London and New York City will kick start Toronto’s council to get off their butts and get with the times?

Although for those of us enjoy our morning nap during our commutes into work, it might be nice to delay expansion of Wi-Fi to the trains, or to have Wi-Fi quiet zones so that we can continue to get some much needed sleep.