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..."

Comments

Oblig Jokes

[beacher]

Quake players and their rail guns...
Tunnelling
Rail driving?
Say, didn't you just hit a badger? There goes our proxy server!

Cheap WiFi

[prat393]

Make sure you sit next to the first class car! You just might get free access. "Warsitting", perhaps?

Its GBP!

[Krik Johnson]

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!

Re:Its GBP!

[Zocalo]

Probably for the same reason that we use ".uk" as our ccTLD despite the "official" ISO standard being GB - because the average joe in the street uses "UK" in preference to "GB". As do the media and the government for that matter. The only common place we use the "GB" ISO code I can think of is on those stickers that go on cars travelling abroad.

Also, bear in mind that the full name of this green and pleasant land is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Given that the "GBP" is also the currency of Northern Ireland, "UKP" is actually more accurate.

Re:Its GBP!

[rikkus-x]

Official ISO standard for what? Great Britain is an island. The United Kingdom is a country. Northern Ireland is a province, England and Scotland are Kingdoms, Wales is a principality.

People usually talk in terms of countries, so what are the ISO people using Great Britain for, I wonder?

Rik

Re:Its GBP!

[NickFitz]

'Great Britain' is a geographical area including some (but not others) of the islands that are near the main island on which England sits.

Not quite.

Great Britain is, as you say, a geographical term, but it refers to the largest island of the British Isles - the one comprising the majority of the landmass of England, Wales and Scotland. The British Isles also include Ireland, containing Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as all the smaller places like the Isle of Man, the Shetlands, and so forth . The name of the country (i.e. the political entity, or state) often referred to as Great Britain is actually called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Personally, I usually refer to my homeland as Britain, as even though it's the greatest country in the world, that isn't saying very much when you consider the competition in this hellhole of a human-vermin-infested planet. Damned by faint praise about sums it up.

Re:Through the rails or over the power lines?

[samael]

Seen the huge sparks that fly about whenever a train goes over even slightly mismatched power rails?

I suspect that there would be altogether too much interference.

Cool, Spammers now have rolling hide outs :)

[Wacky_Wookie]

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!

A whole new spectrum of excuses

[JosKarith]

"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...)

Re:Dupe

[linuxci]

I posted that original article, that was when the GNER service was a trial, now it appears the trial was successful and will be rolled out in the entire fleet.

GNER is the only decent train company in the UK, it's the only one that still offers a smoking carriage, it gives regular travellers a loyalty card like many airlines do, in has a proper restaurant service and I've not had too many problems with their timekeeping.

The only thing I can say bad about them is that they used to sell bottled real ales in the buffet car, but they stopped doing those October last year, now you've got only canned mainstream beers which ain't the same. GNER are usually good at listening to feedback so if you're a regular traveller and miss the guest ales then email them and let them know. Vist www.gner.co.uk and click on the 'contact us' link, then select customer relations.

Expensive. VERY.

[superhoe]

5 GBP PER HOUR?! Here we go again..

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.

nice idea but...

[kefa]

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.

Priorities

[Cleggmeister]

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?!

The cost

[Mr_Silver]

It'll cost UKP4.95 per hour for train goers

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.

Brand Communications

[AndIWonderIfIWonder]

At the WLAN event in London on the 6-7 April, this is exactly what Brand Communications said they are going to be doing. In fact a quick look around their website turned up this press release from 1st December giving some details.

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.