Slashdot Mirror
UK Trains Take WiFi Route To Connectivity
Randy Sparks writes "The BBC is reporting that one of the UK's largest train operators, GNER, is to offer Wi-Fi net access on its trains. What's interesting is how this net connection will be achieved - by a combination of networks provided by multiple mobile phone connections or even digital TV Internet, provided from ground stations the train passes by. It'll cost UKP4.95 per hour for train goers, although First Class Travellers will get it free..."
Quake players and their rail guns...
Tunnelling
Rail driving?
Say, didn't you just hit a badger? There goes our proxy server!
Now when sitting in a three hour delay you can at least do some browsing.
Finally it seems i will be able to achieve my goals of playing my mmorpg charectors no matter where i go.
I can see it now "sorry sir you cant take that see i need it for my 3rd laptop which has my cleric on it, plz leave me along the mobs gonna spawn soon"
Make sure you sit next to the first class car! You just might get free access. "Warsitting", perhaps?
Why do people keep giving us the wrong currency symbol? GBP is the international standard code for pounds, not UKP! For another thing, slashdot dosen't allow pound signs either. Stupid stuck in 1997 website deisgn that dosen't even have valid HTML 3.2!
I have a fetish for traffic cones
a soul train??
choo choo
Excuse me for being so grossly ignorant of the workings of such things, but why don't they either use broadband-over-power and then have wifi routers within the compartments or send the traffic through the rails, rather then try to aim satellites at things? Seems silly to create a new infrastructure when the existing one can be used.
[insert witty comment here]
I call dupe.
November 30th, 2003.
First UK On-Train WiFi Service Launches Monday
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Here in Estonia we have GPRS-based connection in trains. Haven't tried it myself, but I've been told it's quite slow and sluggish.
Thats about 8USD to you! No suprises that the pricing is expensive, rail travel is more expensive than air travel in the UK sometimes!
This is really great news. When I go and visit my girlfriend in Edinburgh I have to do without an Internet connection for up to 3 hours; clearly far too long for anyone :-)
With regards wireless networks in general, I know that when wi-fi network cards are in ad hoc mode you can stumble across other cards in ad hoc mode but is there any way to communicate with them? For example, not only being able to tell another card is present, but ask the owner of the card if they want a game of Quake?
(http://www.e-consort.co.uk)
Why not buy up a whole carriages worth of space and set up your office on a train going between say, Bristol and london, or Manchester? Sure beats sitting in an office all day. If you worked the shifts out correctly, your staff would have a choice between living in two citys (or any stop in between).
Of course that bring up the obvious joke:
In Soviet Russia, the office commutes to YOU!
I think the view from a moving train would be much nicer then a static office window anyday!
"We're sorry this train is late, but there are the wrong type of interleaves on the pipe..."
(For the benefit of those who don't have the pleasure of living in the wettest place on earth British Railways used 'Wrong leaves on the track' as an excuse for late/cancelled trains for years...)
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Cheers,
Ian
Rapidly increasing network access on-the-go is a really cool thing. I was excited and waiting for it when it was first announced.
Now I've already got over my disappointment - f.ex. GPRS service is charged based on traffic here, and it's damn expensive. 100 megabytes and if you exceed that, it's 2 euros/megabyte. So, what's 100 mb/month good for? Definitely not for using graphical WWW on Opera's mobile version. Well, I then check my emails with GPRS. Same thing I could do with GSM data previously, phh.. Dunno, people all around seems to be generally richer than me because they are eagerly waiting for this new EDGE thing to come and increase transfer speeds to 200k or so.
I'm not waiting for it eagerly - correct me if I'm wrong - at least in Europe, it's most likely going to feature similar stupid pricing which renders it useless to most non-corporate users. I'll join the hype about wireless access on-the-go at the very day when I can afford to use it effectively.
-el
I currently use GPRS extensively on trains (admittedly in the London area where reception is relatively good) with no real speed issues. I'd be hard pushed to spend 4.95 GBP on GPRS connection charges during a typical journey.
On the train service from Copanhagen to Gothenburg (Oslo) we already have WiFi - free of charge (-:
However, it was also announced this morning that major operators have deferred the safety recommendations made following a major rail crash some years ago. An independent inquiry recommended the installation of digital radios to help prevent drivers overshooting red signals. This announcement from the operators means that the recommendations will not be actioned until 14 years after the inquiry published its findings. To rub salt into that wound, there is also involvement from OfCom (UK communications regulator) over the sharing of such frequencies, with concerns that such radios may operate on similar frequencies to public access services. And the goveernment seem surprised that its public are reticent to give up their private cars?!
I don't know that much about how the technology works, but it seems to me that there is almost 0 new infrastructure necessary -- but everywhere I go in London, WiFi is outrageously expensive. Can someone with more technological knowledge than I explain this? Perhaps I'm missing some cost, but it seems to me that if they charged 1GBP/hour people would use it without thinking. But, when the cost is higher than the minimum wage, second thoughts arise.
-Colin
I tried this (or similar) on the train from Stockholm to Karlstad last november.
I got i little box with an antenna and connected my ethernet port to the box. I got an IP-address via DHCP, but I'm sorry, I didn't check if it was a public or a NAT-address.
Anyway, I got full Internet access as far as I could tell. I could create a SSH-tunnel to my work and use it to read my email (and to do anything I usually do through SSH. It was a little bit slow, thou. I had urgent things to do for my employer, so I didn't have the time to really explore it's limits.
It didn't have any stupid requirements for operating system and was usable with my GNU/Linux laptop.
You can find some (commercial) information about it here: http://www.linx.se/templates/Page.aspx?id=3108
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
As you can post your complaint as you sit in the delay. Cant wait for Virgin to get this, I could invite the entire carridge to complain with me.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This isn't news. Via Rails here in Canada has been offering wi-fi on Via 1 trains on the Montréal-Toronto or Montréal-Québec City routes here for months on a trial basis.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Given that your battery will go flat after no more than two hours, it's only going to cost you about a tenner anyway :o)
Of course i'm ignoring the fact you might have a spare battery - but also I think that Virgin Trains are the only ones at the moment to offer power points in their trains. First class only.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I started thinking about how the railway could save money...
"Ladies and Gentlemen using our wire internet service: this is your conductor speaking, and I would like to inform you than in approximately five seconds, you will need to change your wireless settings - essid is 'linksys', channel 7, IP range is-... Oh, bugger! It appears we are entering the range of another access point, so let me consult our wardriving records... Here we are: essid is 'elizabeth', channel 11, and-... oh dear, we've just left the range of *that* access point as well. In any case, the farmhouse we are currently passing has the following settings..."
Solomon Chang
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
GNER trains arn't electric.
they don't have a means to connect to the limited amounts of overhead electric wires and the tracks arn't electric either.
nice idea tho
You'll get much better bandwidth if you simply take the data by train. Even with the delays inherent in English rail.
Not sure about GNER, but on several journeys between London-Ipswich and London-Plymouth there have been announcements to the effect of "you can upgrade to first class for 5-10"
London-Ipswich is only a couple of hours journey, but it would really be worth it to upgrade on the 5-7 hour PITA that is Plymouth-London-Plymouth...
I imagine the same would apply to London-Newcastle, London-Scotland...
I have to do a lot of travelling for work, I have used WiFi hotspots almost everywhere I needed it, but whenI have used my laptop on trains before using GPRS, and I think this is a great move and a step in the right direction.
However, the one area where this always falls over is with power. Our batteries are just don't last long enough. I have a brand new Dell D600 (finally gave up on my Thinkpad T21) and the battery will give me 1 - 1.5 hours max.
As long as the trains also offer power outlets so I can keep the charge going I'd happily pay for the connectivity
The press release states "The latest trials were held on route between Edinburgh and London Kings Cross and achieved realistic data rates and speeds, with over 18 GigaBytes of data being sent to and from the train."
I got the impression from the people on the stand that they will be using WiMax to get the signal to the train passengers, and then standard 802.11b inside the carriages.
If it all works out it should make train journeys a bit more interesting, but there goes my excuse to get out of doing any work.
Fast rail travel (like they have on the European continent) is far more comfortable than flying. When you factor in airport distance, check-in times, etc, it's also quicker than flying on most domestic-length routes. Look at Eurostar's dominance on the London-Paris route at the expense of the airlines. It's also far more environmentally friendly than short-haul flights - in Spain you can get a discount on an AVE/Talgo ticket within 48 hours of flying into/out of the country, to persuade you to use the train rather than a connecting flight to your ultimate destination.
Offering WiFi is definately another value-add that will increase train use - you can actually spend that 4-5 hour journey *working* (or whatever) rather than spending approx the same amount of time getting a train to the airport, check-in, hanging around, short flight, another train. Now if they can only get those leaves off the track and introduce high speed services...
My favorate excuse heard on the british train system for delayed trains is "exploding pigeons".
Apparently London Kingscross Thameslink stations overhead lines are very close to the roof and a pigeon flying between the roof and the lines can shorten the gap just enough for the electricity to arc across the gap.
Philip
Signatures are broken
Now they can actually make money by being late! The horror! Now they have incentive!
Think of what a few teenagers might do for kicks if they got access to the internal network for train detection and interlocking - that could be... catastrophic.
No one say terrorists. I hate you already, if you're thinking it.
It wouldn't be a real Empirical Passport if it didn't demand all-access to all it's citizens worldwide, would it?
It's probably a remnant for back when it was a privilege to get a passport...
To a small degree the airlines do have an advantage in not having to pay tax on their fuel, but actually it is generally the train companies that are getting the subsidies. I don't think this is a bad thing in itself as long as it doesn't promote inefficiency; rail travel is far more environmentally friendly than short-haul air, and a good rail infrastructure has many public benefits.
"Guilty until proven innocent", eh? Yeah, Blunkett would hate that...
"According to telecoms analysts BWCS, 625 million people worldwide will be travelling on wi-fi enabled trains within the next five years"
and
"A radio system for train drivers recommended after the Paddington rail crash has been delayed by five years. The digital radio network was to be introduced on the rail network in 2008.
But the system, allowing signallers to speak to a number of drivers at the same time, will not be ready until 2013 - 14 years after the crash."
so 5 years for wi-fi, 9 years for adiquite saftey? nice one
MilkMiruku
GNER press release
GNER WiFi site
The full rollout hasn't commenced yet but you can find out which trains are already running with WiFi
The on board menu
in Denmark all have that compartment. Yet almost every time I choose to sit in one of them, I have to tell people off for talking loudly or using their cellphone - and they talk back, the bastards. If I wasn't a pacifist... (and there was a lax arms-law in DK... of course I'd use a suppressor, it being the quiet compartment and all...)
at least, we have a written constitution.
o nst01.htm
Oh yeah, you might find interesting to read http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/html/constitution/c
articles 7, 8 and especially 9 (the "english" button on the top of the page doesn't seem to work; the Fish makes a terrible mess of this text, while Google's seems decent enough).
My laptop has a built-in wi-fi card...
Also, I can't use it for my final exams this year, because I could set up a hotspot on/near the school and secretly access the internet - and if it wasn't the wi-fi, they'd still ban me for the IRda-port. Seriously.
At least SWT has the good sense to explore a full banning.
:-P
So SWT has stinkers, gives several free weekend travel vouchers anywhere in their network, have not tried restaurant, but since services are all short ( 2hours) I don't see the need for a proper one.
The last thing I want on trains is drunken smokers, it is bad enough as things stand (have you ever taken a train after 22:00, specially on Fridays?) so I will not click that link you Mr Chimney
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I just moved into central Copenhagen from a station on that line A MONTH AGO. I'd been living there for two friggin' years, commuting every single morning!
We are talking the line that goes from Helsingør/Elsinore thru Copenhagen and CPH Airport to Sweden, right?
The smoke from the stinker carriage knows no boundaries, specially in adjacent coaches in which you still have to tolerate the fumes of the future cancer patients.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I've always called it 'the Monkey Cage'
The Brits still behave as if they had an Empire. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to get titles of the Imperial type, anymore.
Apart from that, Danish is only my second language, and English is my third.
I don't *use* my first language anymore, and for a time, English filled that role. Odd, really.
Question from a Yank: how does RyanAir charge 99p or nothing for a flight and make money? Is there a catch?
Old hat. VIA Rail Canada has been offering wireless for almost a year...
They make money because most of their fares cost more than 0.99p, and they trim their costs to the bone (quick turnarounds, one type of aircraft, 50% discount negotiated with Boeing, cheap deals with regional airports, etc.) Ryanair copied the model from Southwest, but are actually better at it even than them.
They offer the 99p fares on flights that have a lot of space free - typically mid-week, etc. If you try to book a flight last-minute, they will absolutely screw you (expect to pay up to EUR 200-300.) Unfortunately they will also screw you if anything goes wrong - no refunds in any circumstances, unless your flight is cancelled - in which case a refund is *all* you get and good luck getting home if you're stranded. They also keep the taxes/charges for no-shows.
The cost of the flight is basically fixed irrespective of how many people are on it, so Ryanair sell the empty seats off cheap as a marketing tool, while other airlines might just leave the seats empty. (The passenger must pay taxes and airport charges, although they did do one promotion where they paid these for the passenger.) They also make money on in-flight sales and advertising, and their CEO has in the past suggested the idea of permanently free flights financed by in-air gambling.
The 99p fares do exist, and are not even that difficult to get if you book quickly after they announce a special offer. I've often flown on them. Their *average* fare in 2002 was GBP 30; I believe it's lower now. They are a profitable company on this average.
Martin Little took the WiFi train and reviewed the journey for Mobitopia back in December 2003.
Not altogether positive, GPRS may well be quicker for many people.
There are several rail providers in Canada and the US that are trialling WiFi access. VIA Rail is currently offering it for free on the Toronto to Montreal run. There are trials running down in California as well as other places. Check out PointShot Wireless for more. (No, I dont work there.)
Sure things take a while for prices to come down but WiFi has already been around for a while. A large number of places are already free in the US for WiFi. Wardriving down the Pacific Coast highway (Seattle-LA) we have passed huge numbers of open wireless networks that are based in Coffee Shops, Hotels, etc. The reason they are free is that they attract customers as a value add. The same would appply to trains. To get people off planes and out of cars the UK train services need to add value to the trip without increasing the already expensive tickets. WiFi is one way to go. Keep in mind that other Wifi providers supply access for 5GBP for 24hours in the UK and you get a better idea of what the cost stucture should be.
[Please type your sig here.]
Aren't those the ones I kept hearing about on Copenhagen Central Station?
"Swedish Railways are sorry to announce that the X-2000 for Stockholm has been cancelled..."?
Happens quite often, as I recall...
I *am* from Denmark. My mother's just from an old colony, Greenland. All my greenlandish relatives live up there, so I never maintained the use of the language.
They slashed the buffet car here in Denmark years ago... Now there's a young lady with an airline-type beverage-and-nasty-food cart... Ech... As if the food they had before wasn't horrid enough...
On one side:
This is a quiet compartment.
Please respect this.
On the other side:
SHUT THE FUCK UP,
YOU SMELLING PIECE OF FETID CARP!
Personaly I've always liked article 10.
Hey, Chirac, what part of: "Nul ne doit être inquiété pour ses opinions, même religieuses, pourvu que leur manifestation ne trouble pas l'ordre public établi par la Loi." don't you understand?
Good god, Slashdot didn't zap the accents! What is the world coming to.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Precisely because proselytist display of religious symbols (a mere manifestation of religious opinions) in public, taxpayer-funded schools has been reckoned (rightly so IMO) to have crossed a threshold of "Trouble to public order", big time I would add.
;-)
Law-abiding Muslims (or Jews or Catholics or Satanists) are free to practice their religion if they want to, but in their own places, and without the help from my taxes, thank you very much.
The law does say (since 1881) that public schools are free, mandatory and laic (not in that order).
If extremist muslim families want their daughters to wear the veil in school, they can do so in privately-funded schools if they want. Not enough money to fund those schools? Comply with the rules then. In this country, the Republic takes precedence over prophets, popes and snake-oil vendors.
Personally, I'd vote for the return of uniforms in schools. This would get rid of this religious stoopidity problem AND the swoosh problem in a single step.
Sweetly off-topic, isn't it?
I think this is an EXCELLENT application for Cisco's Mobile Router / Mobile IP technology.
2 72/
Problem: Every time the train goes into a new region (or switches to satellite etc) it will need to obtain a new IP address for the outer connected device.
Solution: Cisco Mobile Router can keep everyone connected, maintain the same IP address, and make the transaction flawlessly so that nobody loses their open connections.
I was looking at this technology when I worked at Lockheed Martin for use on aircrafts as they would pass from one satellite zone to another, but I think on a train like this is an excellent application.
More info at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps
There is a strong Tunisian connection to the recent bombings in Spain and other European terrorism. Tunisian terrorists (Tunisia being extremely close to Sicily) are obviously sitting off the north coast of sicily with an experimental EMP weapon.