Reliably poor reception, no data in Steinmaur, Dielsdorf, Oberglatt along the S5

This is a “customers helping customers” forum and not a Swisscom complaint center.

Anyway, there are technical limitations in trains, tunnels, etc. that can only be solved with extremely large financial outlay. But even with the greatest effort, many things are not possible in Switzerland because of the strict environmental regulations.

Customers want to be well looked after wherever they are on the move, it should cost little or even nothing at all (stinginess is cool) and you don’t want any radiation either…

Cell phone reception is very poor in railway carriages and cars because of the metal outer wall and the very thin layer of thermal film on the window panes. When penetrating the two materials mentioned, the mobile phone signal is weakened by a factor of around 1000x. Mobile reception is only acceptable in railway carriages with in-train repeaters. See:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrain-Repeater

SBB: Connected on the go - background information on mobile phone services

The Intrain repeater is often missing, especially in older Swiss regional passenger cars.

This only ensures reception. But whether hundreds of participants on a crowded train receive a channel with enough bandwidth in the new radio cell almost simultaneously when the train thunders out of the tunnel at 100 kmh kmh is a completely different problem…

Here in the Basel region there is a 5.3km long railway tunnel in which LTE works perfectly, significantly faster than usual on the Basel - Olten route. The entry and exit also work wonderfully.

On the Basel - Brugg route there is nothing for this in the 2.5km long tunnel. EDGE, is there, but so bad. Almost nothing works even on an empty train. Full reception, but sending a WhatsApp message becomes a challenge.

Yes, of course, with appropriate effort (if customers are less willing to pay for this) almost anything is possible. There is also the time factor until it is implemented across the board.

And ultimately, this always collides with unrealistic customer expectations. As soon as a new technology is announced (VoWLAN, VoLTE, 5G,…) the “Gschtürm” starts because at the time of launch it is not yet available for every device and in every corner of Switzerland.

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@Googlook wrote:
Here in the Basel region there is a 5.3km long railway tunnel, in which LTE works perfectly, significantly faster than usual on the Basel - Olten route. The entry and exit also work wonderfully.

On the Basel - Brugg route there is nothing for this in the 2.5km long tunnel. EDGE, is there, but so bad. Almost nothing works even on an empty train. Full reception, but sending a WhatsApp message becomes a challenge.

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In Swiss railway tunnels, mobile communications coverage is provided via the tunnel radio system. The mobile phone signal is usually broadcast in the tunnel via a radiating cable:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnelfunkanlage

The radio cell change (handover) takes place either deep in the tunnel tube or a few meters before the tunnel portal/start of the tunnel. The antennas installed on the tunnel portal are part of the tunnel radio system and move the location of the cell change (handover) away from the tunnel portal.

The tunnel radio system is installed and operated by the railway infrastructure operator (e.g. SBB). The public mobile phone providers only have to feed their mobile signal (via fiber optic cable) into the head-end station. Numerous radio signals are generally transmitted via the tunnel radio systems in Swiss railway tunnels:

- The mobile signal from the three public Swiss mobile phone providers (Swisscom, Sunrise, Salt)
- The non-public GSM-R cellular signal
- The digital BOS radio (Polycom)

- Various radio systems such as the radio signal for the fire and rescue train (LRZ)

SBB sources all tunnel radio systems from a single manufacturer. Depending on the tunnel radio system model, newer or only older mobile communications technologies are supported. A very new model of tunnel radio system is installed in the Adler Tunnel, which even supports 4G/LTE. For example, on the Gotthard mountain line in the Erstfeld-Göschenen area, only an old tunnel radio system model is installed, which is why only 2G/GSM mobile phone reception is possible in the railway tunnels around Wasen (as of 2015). The tunnel radio systems are constantly being modernized so that even after the end of 2020 (2G/GSM is switched off by Swisscom), a telephone conversation in the railway tunnel is possible and does not drop out.

All railway tunnels on railway sections with GSM-R mobile phone coverage are equipped with a tunnel radio system and GSM-R mobile phone reception is guaranteed even in the railway tunnel. However, not every public Swiss mobile phone provider (Swisscom/Sunrise/Salt) feeds its mobile signal to the head-end station of every tunnel radio system.

For example, a tunnel radio system is installed in the longest railway tunnel between Meggen and “Luzern Verkehrshaus”, but because the Swisscom mobile phone signal is not fed into the head station, every telephone conversation with a mobile phone with a Swisscom SIM card in this tunnel breaks off (as of September 2015).

The GSM-R rollout plan provides an overview of the Swiss railway sections equipped with GSM-R mobile phone coverage at:

[https://www.sbb.ch/sbb-gruppe/sbb-als-geschaeftspartnerin/angebote-fuer-evus/telecom/gsm-r.html](https://www.sbb.ch/sbb-gruppe/ sbb-as-business-partner/offers-for-evus/telecom/gsm-r.html)