Best route to avoid underground?
 

Hi all,

So at present I am looking at some flights from potentially Stanstard and returning to LHR due to flight times. On the way out, I need to avoid the underground as I really to have a data connection. If I am coming from Milton Keynes whats the best station or the best way to do it? I could drive but if i fly back to another airport, I need to leave my car somewhere central where it can be retrieved.

Any suggestions

Perhaps you need to clarify your problem be a bit more specific about routes and needs. Is it that you must not lose any a data link at any time - or could you last without a connection for a few minutes? That might increase the options.

Where do you mean by your phrase "... On the way out ..."? From where to where does this refer?

I am reading your post to mean that you are travelling from Milton Keynes to Stansted for a flight to somewhere else and returning from there to LHR . You can accept the underground on the way back? If you drove from MK to STN why would you need the underground at all on the way out?

What time is the flight?

There is also a risk that, even above ground, you don't have a strong data connection.

Apologies let me rephrase.

I will be travelling from Milton Keynes with an outbound at Stanstard and a return flight to Heathrow. The outbound flight is around 3pm and I need to be on a teams call between 11 and 2pm. Meaning I do need to to have an active data connection to stay on the call and cant phone in as I need to present also.

I was looking for a route or station where I could park outside of London I guess and commute to Stanstard and on the return get to the same station easily. I did think Watford for a short while. There may be other better routes. To throw a spanner in the works, I could fly from Heathrow at around the same time and drive to heathrow which is my preferred choice but then i have the issue of being on the meeting and driving which is a not possible.

I hope that makes better sense

Firstly it's Stansted not Stanstard.

If you are going Milton Keynes to Stansted, you can do it mostly above ground or upper level by taking:

- Avanti train to Euston
- walk to Euston Square
- H&C/Circle Line to Liverpool Street
- Stansted Express Liverpool Street to Stansted

or

- Avanti to Euston
- Victoria Line to Tottenham Hale
- Stansted Express Tottenham Hale to Stansted

But if you think you will get a solid reliable data connection on *any* of those train legs, then you are very much mistaken.

The sensible thing is to get to Stansted before 11 and find somewhere quiet, maybe a hotel, to do the call from there.

TBH I would either book a different flight or plan to arrive at a time that meant I could do the meeting from a lounge. Trying to do a teams call while on the move is rarely going to end well.

That is the guaranteed solution - also some hotels offer a day rate for privacy etc. Or do it from your car in the carpark with a fixed location so you dont lose signal.

Everyone above urging you not to trust getting internet access on train lines is absolutely correct. Even if a train line claims to offer it, a whole lot of the time it is somehow out of order.

This, in spades. You will be guaranteed to lose connection at some point if travelling. It will come across as unprofessional if you are trying to present on a train. Nothing you are presenting will be private, and you will annoy the hell out of fellow passengers.

Also much of the wifi services on public transport doesn’t support video calls and those that do are throttled to prevent one or two people hogging the bandwidth

And wifi from your own phone provider won’t always be stable as there are always not spots on the network.

You are seriously hoping to present a three-hour Teams call from public transport? :)

I think the only solution is for you to get to the airport before 11, check in, go through security and find a quiet corner of the departure lounge to host your call.

:D

I think the OP was referring to the airport branded mustard they sell at concession stands there.

As others have said, train wifi is pretty weak and Teams seems far more bandwidth heavy than Zoom/GMeet. This will not work out well for you. TBH regular cell data can be sketchy enough for Teams to collapse too.

How about the National Express 737 coach from Oxford to Stansted that calls into Milton Keynes? It's not especially quick but it's definitely all above ground. Whether you could have a good signal as others have commented is another question.

On the way back, Heathrow to MK and National Express is again a good option. I think the 707 and a few other services ply that route.

The “call on the move” is probably not going to work anyway, as you’d need to be going through security during the call (I wouldn’t be messing about finishing a call landside at STN at T-60). The early arrival and find a spot in the lounge is probably the best idea, but there are no particularly good solutions here.