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

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

A story about a forgotten “Rabbit” base station still mounted in London’s Seven Sisters Underground station prompts nostalgia for early 1990s experiments in short‑range mobile telephony. Commenters compare the ill‑fated CT2 systems like Rabbit, Kermit and France’s Bi‑Bop to later DECT and 5G small cells, reflecting on why the technology failed commercially despite being technically sound. The thread broadens into observations about obsolete infrastructure left powered or in place for decades, and how rapidly communications habits shifted from landlines and pagers to ubiquitous smartphones.

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.