Truck Stops Get Wireless Internet

Makarand writes "According to SFGate.com, a company called IdleAire Technologies are building high-tech truck stops to provide drivers with air-conditioning, television, Internet access and phone service in truck cabs, so that they can turn off their engines. Trucks will pull into bays, where flexible tubes ending in vents for hot or cold air, and touch sensitive screens for Internet access can be pulled inside the truck's cab. There's also a separate wireless Internet option, where drivers don't have to pull into the bays. The basic services provided cost less than the fuel spent in idling a truck."

Comments

Wireless at Truckstops

[prhodes]

The local Flying J's truckstop has been advertising wireless access for about a month - I don't think it has the a/c stuff set up - no bays. At any rate, are there really that many truckers hauling around laptops?

Re:Wireless at Truckstops

[American AC in Paris]

At any rate, are there really that many truckers hauling around laptops?

I don't know, but honestly, this is one occupational demographic that can really use wireless internet.

Consider that they've developed an intricate code-oriented language for use over CB radios. (They've been heavily into the "wireless communications" thing for decades, if you look at it in that light.)

Consider that a trucker has both a financial and personal safety interest in knowing things like nationwide weather forecasts, traffic reports, and navigational systems. These people really do rely heavily on knowing where that snowstorm is going, or hearing about the multi-car accident on their projected route through a busy city at rush hour.

Consider that trucking can be an amazingly lonely occupation, and the ability to communicate with people is incredibly valuable. Truckers got spouses and families. How else are you going to get your e-mail, complete with photo attachments of little Johnny doing something cute? Would you prefer some half-assed, run-down attempt at a pay kiosk in the middle of the truck stop, or your own personal system in the privacy of your own cab?

Networking has been part of trucking for decades. In many ways, this is the next logical step.

Won't change

[HogGeek]

I used to work with a trucker in the summers delivering farm equipment. He had told me that the reason truckers don't "shutdown" the truck was because it was too hard on the engine. Nothing to do with AC or anything else. Semi engines run for 500,000 + miles typically without any work other than routine service (i.e oil change)

So while wireless internet may be a "value add", I don't see the bays being used by long distance OTR drivers, unless things have changed.

Re:Potential problem

[vasqzr]

Epic MegaGames actually started like this. The two guys that started the company drove semi trucks, and while one guy drove for 8 hours, the other would program, do art, level design, etc.

Kind of neat, eh?

Inspired me to write a Tetris clone on our 30 hour drive to Disney World in the family station wagon. I wrote it on paper then actually typed it in at the Hotel. I didn't have a cigarette lighter power inverter back in 1993.