First UK On-Train WiFi Service Launches Monday

dave writes "UK train company GNER starts trials of the UK's first on-train wireless Internet access service. Currently only available on limited services and in First Class; if the trial is successful the service will be rolled out across the entire fleet in both Standard and First Class."

Comments

VIA Already has this

[yani]

VIA (the national train service in Canada) already has this on thier first class cars, see here.

I've seen one go by while I was at the train station on day waiting for the commuter train but it was going by a bit too quickly for me to try to grab a connection with my axim x3i :P

Re:The problem I have with trains

[ender81b]

I've been riding the trains in the UK for the past 6 months ish and I don't understand what people's problem with them is. If they are delayed it is almost never more than 10 minutes and if it is greater than 10 minutes it's usually due to something weird like lightning hitting the tracks or some other thing. 9 times out of 10 your train is never delayed and you don't run into problems.

To me, as an american, the trains are fan-fucking-tastic. American mass transportation systems can't come close to the ease and convience that the British get from the train system. Personally, I love it. Get on whatever train you want come back on whatever train you want at any time. It's great.

Now, for me, I want wireless and I want it now ;). The 4 hour train ride to London would be much much much easier to deal with if I could have my precious intarweb with me.

France is doing it too

[Krunch]

Here is a link (PDF). Sorry it's in French but I can't find one in English. Here is the Google translation of the HTML version.

More technical details

[nickovs]

The technology for this is provided by Icomera. There are some more data about what their technology does, though not really much about how it works. Their speciality seems to be "Seamless Handover" between the different types of network connection.