Slashdot Mirror
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."
Its unfortunate that this is currently only available in one carriage, one would imagine that the expensive bit is the satellite uplink (assuming this is how they do it, although I saw GSM mentioned somewhere), distributing the wireless within the train should be the easy bit.
on a standard rate ticket the train cars are massively over packed during commuter periods. thankfully the gner routes are not as popular as the ones in the south and south-east.
that this has happened at all is a nice and due to competition from virgin trains who operate on the western main line up and down the country, who offer laptop and mobile charging, etc. on your journey for a business class ticket. they operate their trains more like they operate their airlines than the other rail operators. it is true that i'd like to see this service offered across the board for the entire train network eventually by the majority of operators.
since privatisation (the railways used to be pubically owned) the responsibility for the track network and the train operators has been split leading to more massive accidents than ever before. imagine if the internet was run by idiot companies with no idea about how to run a network with all the isp's just putting more traffic over a poor backbone infrastructure that was already in place, with little or no investment in that infrastructure, with all the maintainence work contracted out to the cheapest sub-contractor.
I'd be interested to know how the expect to get DSL-level bandwith from GSM technology, especially when more than one person will be using the line.
Also, in my experience public WIFI providers tend to charge an arm and a leg for the service. I'm sure the trial is free, but I can't see it remaining that way when the role the service out to "standard class". 1 per email, anyone ?
As an American, you might find the idea of trains great. They are. Go to Dernmark or Germany or Sweden and check them out.
Then come back to England, and try and use them. I mean rely on them, for work, or an important appointment. You just can't do it. My train to/from work (on the line between Paddington and Slough) is late on an almost daily basis. They're filthy, extremely expensive, and very dangerous. There is no system to prevent trains crossing red signals - you have to hope the human driver is in a state to take notice of them. The price of my tickets have increased about 70% this year, thanks to the withdrawal of a discount card (Network South East card). You can still buy them, but they have far more restrictive terms, which make them effectively worthless. You'd not want to use a train late at night, especially if you're a girl, or you have expensive laptops etc, as hardly any trains have guards. You just have to hope that this time you'll be lucky and some drunken fuckwit doesn't take offence to you. Station staff are poorly trained, so you'll often be issued with a ticket which a subsequent ticket inspector will not agree with. The chances of getting stopped are low, so many people don't buy tickets, further degrading the service.
On your final point - I have no trouble using WAP on most of my train journey, so the web should be available via that service.
Do you happen to know which stretches of GNER route run next to the motorway? It is one thing to do 125mph (with a radar detector, of course) but I would like to be on a straight road :) All this to save 1p in online costs :)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
You are correct. GNER did not cause the deaths at Hatfield.
mikeb made some fair points about cars so I will too.
Once upon a time, cars were death-machines. You crashed, you died. Laws were introduced forcing car manufactures to improve safety. We saw crumple zones, headrests, shatterproof glass, seatbelts, airbags, to name but a few. All these save lives.
You've seen the pictures of the crashes. Travelling along at 100mph in a plastic Tupperware box with little to no brakes, no seatbelts, no airbags, no way out... It's insane.
GNER are spending money on a WiFi system. I still say it is disgusting.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I have been using the trains in the UK and, after having lived in The Netherlands I can only say I am shocked. In fact, I would say that the worst thing in the UK are the trains.
Arround here (Birmingham) ~40% of the trains have delays bigger than 5 minutes. In the weekend it can be hours, HOURS. During the summer the line from Birmingham to London was cut for maintainence for 3 DAYS IN A ROW. Buses were at least available as an alternative.
And most of the trains are not confortable. Especially the local ones.
And they are the most expensive trains in Europe.
They are even much worse, on average, than the portuguese ones (I am portuguese).
Wonderful country - I love being here, if you take out the so called public transport system.
I am thinking in buying a car, I don't drive for 5 years, no need until now...
Sorry for the rant.
What would be really cool is access to a real-time train map like the controllers see, then you can see the real reason your train just stopped in the middle of no-where for 15 mins with no explination. Also - and i dont think transportation people have really caught on to this fact: things always seem faster when you have a moving progress bar on a screen (it has to move every second). People want to be able to see whats going on and when - thats why people like the count-down displays at bus stops and on the tube.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
To really enjoy this train wifi, we need a LAN Game protocol designed for publically used WiFi locations. This would let people publish a list of which games they might like to play and support connectinons to others. Any LAN-playable game would need some type of plugin that provides information about how to connect to other (i.e., a Chess app would only let one other person connect, an MMORG would define which scenarios different people want to play, etc.) That way the person in car 2 could find a game buddy in car 4 without any prearrangements with that person.
I see only two problems. The first is security. Depending on who programs the protocol, it could end up with exploits. Also, the games might provide a channel for exploits if someone uses a hacked copy of Doom to insinuate themselves into another rider's laptop. The second problem would be playability when the person in car 3 decides to use the 5 hour journey to download the latest Linux distro.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This is a great step forwards.
People will complain about late or cancelled trains but the fact is that no journey is every fast enough if you're not enjoying yourself, and no journey is too slow if you're having a good time.
The question therefore is: will on-board internet links make life better or worse for travellers? And the answer is obviously "yes".
With a notebook and wifi, even long waits are entirely bearable and can be fun. I'd rather a four-hour train journey with wifi than a two hour flight without.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Or you could not kill yourself and simply park up at a station - with the trains coming and going you may get a reasonable connection. Heck, if it was vital, wait for a train tp pull in, runn off, pull the emergency handle on the train, run back to your car and browse while they check it all out.