Johan Kallenfeldt commutes to work on the train between Umeå and Örnsköldsvik, he just had a team meeting and it went well, but it doesn’t always work.
– It is the land of a thousand tunnels when we approach Husum and no meetings or anything can be done, he says.
At the end of this year, the government’s goal was that everyone in Sweden should have access to stable mobile services wherever they are. But if you are on the train, it is not always so stable.
In total, coverage is up to 93.9 out of 100 percent. Most of the time it is possible to call with the mobile phone, but surfing is more difficult. The worst mobile coverage is in cars along national roads, where the coverage is 48.1 percent, along railways with high traffic 60 percent.
Tested the coverage
When Nyheterna’s team tested the coverage on the stretch between Umeå and Kramfors, we lost the connection from time to time and when we measured download and upload, it was sometimes too poor to be stable.
It is about the fact that the signals from the base stations do not always reach the end, especially in tunnels and where there are high embankments along the tracks.
– What we are doing now is that we have started replacing the windows with radio-transparent windows where the signals can get through, but the problem is that there is no signal coverage along the entire railway network in Sweden, says Tobbe Lundell, press manager at SJ.
The commuter: “Can be shaky”
Erika Volpe lives in Umeå and takes the train to work in Örnsköldsvik. She has gotten used to the fact that it can be a problem sometimes.
– I download documents that I can read because I know it can be shaky, she says.
The Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Board believes that the target will be reached in 2026 – by which time the telecommunications operators will have expanded the capacity along roads and railways.
These days, cell phone coverage isn’t the biggest problem. Icing on the brakes means that the train has to turn around after 2 miles of travel. Johan Kallenfeldt was on his way to work in Örnsköldsvik but now has to wait back to Umeå.
– Yes… now I miss a two-hour meeting like that when we had to be in the same room, but I get to go home and take that meeting digitally instead! he says, smiling at the situation.