There’s a 30-year old dead Rabbit in Seven Sisters tube station

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Logo, Signage, and Aesthetics

  • Many praise the Rabbit logo as “killer” and hope it gets reused; some compare it to a nerdy variant of the Playboy rabbit.
  • Several try to decipher the Rumbelows icon strip (play/stop/pause, film, freezer, washing machine, generic electrics), noting it evokes tape-deck controls and white‑goods retail.
  • Multiple comments wish the dusty sign and base station were cleaned and preserved as a design time capsule.

Title, Clickbait, and Expectations

  • Several readers initially thought the article was about an actual dead animal and found the title misleading or “clickbait.”
  • Others enjoyed the misdirection and note the original thumbnail on the source site makes the non-literal meaning clearer.
  • Some argue capitalization (“Rabbit” vs “rabbit”) affects interpretation; others say context should make it obvious.

Historical Tech Context and Global Equivalents

  • Commenters recall similar CT2 systems:
    • Netherlands: “Kermit”/Greenpoint.
    • France: Bi‑Bop.
    • Japan: PHS (ran until 2020).
    • Hong Kong/China PHS/CT2 (linked Wired piece).
  • Rabbit is framed as a precursor to dense small‑cell ideas later echoed in 5G/mmWave.
  • People note constraints: short range, hotspot-only use, often outgoing calls only, limited spectrum reuse, and competition from emerging full mobile networks.

Telecom Business History

  • Rabbit is linked to Hutchison’s evolution: Rabbit → Orange → Three, with Orange later sold and rebranded by France Télécom.
  • Some see Rabbit as “the OS/2 of mobile”: technically sound but commercially eclipsed.
  • There is curiosity about why Hutchison didn’t pivot more aggressively into cordless‑home phones.

Slang, Naming, and Culture

  • “Rabbit” is discussed as UK slang for talking (“rabbit and pork” = “talk” in rhyming slang), plus puns on rabbit-ear antennas and Hutchinson “Hutch.”
  • A UK novelty song about “rabbiting on” is cited as reinforcing the chatter association.
  • There’s a long tangent on how “pork” and “talk” rhyme in some non‑rhotic British accents, illustrating dialect variation.

Legacy Infrastructure and Tech Ruins

  • Commenters swap stories of:
    • Dead or forgotten equipment still powered (old DECT bases, servers, neon signs left on for decades).
    • Abandoned telecom gear (Ricochet poletops, old phone booths, metro remnants in Stockholm).
  • Some romanticize these artifacts as future “street furniture” deserving museum treatment; others see urban cable/box clutter as oppressive.

DECT, Landlines, and Modern Use

  • DECT is noted as CT2’s successor and still widely used:
    • Common in European homes (especially Germany), integrated into popular routers and smart-home gear.
    • Reused at hacker conferences, and in baby monitors and elder-care setups (DECT handsets linked to mobiles for always-on reachability).
  • Debate arises over whether this has advantages versus just carrying a mobile phone; clarified use case is redundancy during charging and better in‑home ergonomics.

Broader Reflections

  • Several feel struck by how “recent” the early‑90s tech feels until they remember it is 30+ years old.
  • A Dead Media/“lost future” theme runs through the thread: Rabbit and kin are reminders of many plausible technical paths that lost out largely due to timing and market dynamics rather than pure engineering merit.