Tube Wi

Wi-Fi on the Tube costs money from today, unless you’re on Virgin Media, Vodafone or EE. Everyone else has to pay to connect on the commute from now on, starting at around 50p per day.

Virgin Media has been providing free Wi-Fi at London Underground stations to all tube travellers since the Olympics. It’s business as usual if you’re a Virgin Media, Vodafone or EE customer, which includes those signed up to Orange and T-Mobile.

But if you’re on O2, Three, GiffGaff or any other network, you will now have to access the underground Wi-Fi on a pay as you go basis.

If you’re now a paying customer, Wi-Fi access costs £2 per day, £5 per week or £15 per month. That works out at 50p a day if you use the Tube every day, or around 75p if you only use it on weekdays.

Virgin Media’s Wi-Fi portal includes Transport for London updates so you can still check out travel information without coughing up, as well as other bits and bobs such as London entertainment updates and news.

To go online underground, you just have to register your email address and you can use it just like any open hotspot. Wi-Fi is available on platforms and escalators and in the ticket hall, but while your train is in a tunnel you’re cut off from the Web.

Another 11 stops get the Wi-Fi magic this week, taking the total to 103 stations. Those new stations are Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway, Gloucester Road, Highbury and Islington, Kentish Town, Hampstead, Great Portland Street, Redbridge, Hammersmith, Blackhorse Road and South Wimbledon.

The London Underground turned 150 this month with the anniversary of the first journey, a steam locomotive chuffing along the Metropolitan Line back in 1863.

BT’s Thames Wi-Fi service is also being upgraded along its 27-mile route, Engadget reports.

Is Wi-Fi worth the cost to connect as you commute? What other digital distractions get you through your journey? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.

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Tube Wi

Good news, Londoners! Wi-Fi in Tube stations is going to stay free for the foreseeable future. Bad news: it’s only if you’re a customer of Virgin Media, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile or EE.

If you’re not signed up to one of those companies, you’ll have to pay £2 per day, £5 per week or £15 per month to check your email while you wait two minutes for the next train. That’ll have to be some crucial email.

Wi-Fi will remain free for everyone until the end of January next year, when this new pay as you go plan starts. Travel information will still be free for all, like Bank at half past five.

The glistening tendrils of the Web have spread further underground too, with 20 more stations plugged in and 28 to come in “early 2013”. Added today are Balham, Belsize Park, Bounds Green, Chalk Farm, Camden Town, Clapham Common, Clapham South, Finsbury Park, Highgate, Holloway Road, Lancaster Gate, Notting Hill Gate, Oval, Russell Square, Seven Sisters, South Kensington, Swiss Cottage, Turnpike Lane, Wood Green and Mornington Crescent.

The Web is now piping into 92 stations, some of which are even south of the river. Virgin reckons 76 per cent of people living in Greater London will have access to Wi-Fi for free, by getting broadband from Virgin, or mobile from one of its partners.

To access the Wi-Fi you just have to register your email address, then you can use it as any other open hotspot. You can use it on the platforms and escalators, but once your train pulls away down the tunnel you’re cut off, marooned from the wonders of the Internet until you reach the next station.

The service was opened in time for the Olympics and was initially supposed to be switched to pay as you go immediately after the Games, but logistical problems have delayed the launch of the paywall by nearly six months. Some 800,000 people have signed up, or one in 10 Londoners.

Have you gone Tube surfing? Would you pay for it? Tell me about your signal problems down in the comments, or jump aboard our Facebook page.

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