Leader: No hang ups about subterranean mobiles

With mobile coverage encroaching into nearly every part of our lives - even on planes - it was only be a matter of time before mobile signals started finding their way onto the Tube.

Granted, it's still in the planning stages but Transport for London (TfL) announced recently that if all goes well in planned pilots, mobile coverage could turn up across the network from 2009. But what difference will it make for the average London commuter or tourist?

According to one survey, we'll all apparently be diving into our bags and grabbing our phones - but we won't be putting them to our ears. Nope, we'll all be emailing and checking the mobile internet.

Does this sound like your experience of travelling on the Tube? No? Us neither.

There are a great many areas where the Tube emerges above ground already - according to TfL, 55 per cent of it is topside - and it's rare to see anyone doing a spot of browsing or sending an email when it does.

Instead, commuters tend to whip out their mobiles feverishly as soon as they pick up a signal and race to make a two-minute phone call that starts with "I'm on the Tube", and ends with a determinedly shouted: 'Hello, are you there? I'm going into a tunnel... ' when the train dips back into the subterranean world.

Frantic texting can also be seen when the Tube emerges into the light but anything higher tech is pretty rare.

Surely, once when we get into the world of ubiquitous coverage, such annoyances will disappear as travellers no longer race against time to get that call or SMS in before their signal evaporates.

Tech-savvy Hong Kong has gone in advance of the UK and already has coverage on its underground network - platforms, tunnels, the lot. Yet visitors to the country don't report a nation glued to mobile phones, chatting at all times. In fact it's still rare to hear a loud conversation or a grating ringtone in a carriage.

It may be naive optimism but perhaps the UK's adoption of mobiles on the Tube will follow the same pattern. People don't check the mobile internet with a huge degree of frequency above ground, why should they do so below it? Equally, those who love the silence of an early morning commuter train have little to fear: once the novelty of the scheme has worn off, there's no reason to think there will be incessant embracing of chatter underground either.

When mobiles first became popular, people used them with abandon in restaurants and cinemas.

A brief period of heavy tutting from the public at large eventually curbed the practice. Tube phone calls will doubtlessly follow the same course. And in the unlikely event people do insist on using their mobiles to check the internet, as the study predicts, we should welcome that too. It's hard to use the mobile web anything other than silently.