In message , at 19:13:03 on Wed, 17 Jul
2019, Tweed remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:49:32 on Wed, 17 Jul
2019, Tweed remarked:

Just for anecdata, my iPhone on Vodafone connects without user intervention
to the Underground WiFi. You don’t need to be a VM customer to use it.

That kind of reciprocal arrangement comes and goes, almost too fast to
keep up. But yes, at the moment some Vodafone plans include the Virgin
Wifi on the tube.

I think you will find all the main networks work with the underground
system. See https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/station-wifi

If we read that as "many customers of any of the main networks..." then
that comes firmly under 'arrangements come and go'.

Vodafone has their particular subset, and as O2 seems to be mentioned
here a lot, here's their particular bit of arm-waving:

"Most current phones with an O2 sim will connect automatically.
You just need to make sure your software is up to date, your
wifi is switched on, and that (if you're on Pay As You Go)
you've topped up in the last 30 days. And you're good to go."

No detail on what they mean by "current phone", and what it is about a
non-current phone that might stop it working. Nor exactly what "up to
date" means. Could be at one extreme "you MUST HAVE Android 9", or at
the other extreme "if you've got whatever the last update your supplier
pushed to you, even if that's only Android 6, you are OK".

And it's not so much a facility for qualifying O2 subscribers, as a
reciprocal arrangement for people who have an O2 wifi account. With
pages of additional instructions on how to jump through hoops get one of
those.

I'm none the wiser (and don't really care at this point) whether all of
this applies equally to Tesco subscribers, who are of course users of
the O2 network, or even if it might apply to a user of any network who
also happened to have signed up to O2 wifi (assuming that's even
possible).
--
Roland Perry