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Virgin Trains boosts in-carriage mobile coverage

Published: 08 Apr 2008 09:29 BST

Travellers on Virgin Trains could soon be chattering for longer. The train operator has joined forces with Vodafone UK to boost mobile coverage within carriages so that fewer calls are dropped.

Repeater technology, which retransmits 2G and 3G, will be installed on all 52 of Virgin's high-speed Pendolino trains on the London to Glasgow route by November.

The technology has already improved the number of calls completed without interruption by around 60 percent, both companies said.

But uninterrupted calls could lead to other problems.

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A survey of more than 2,000 mobile users commissioned by Vodafone has found more than 70 percent of workers discuss business on their mobile phones in public. Twenty percent of respondents admitted talking about business-critical subjects, such as sales leads, and 15 percent confessed to discussing confidential new products or services while travelling.

More than a quarter (26 percent) of workers even admitted they have followed up on a lead overheard in someone else's phone conversation.

Mark Bond, director of enterprise marketing for Vodafone UK, said business people should consider the most appropriate form of communication on the move, switching to more discrete methods such, as text or email, when necessary.

Credit: Virgin Trains passengers to chatter for longer from silicon.com