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Wi-Fi by Rail, Bus or Boat
securitas writes "The New York Times' Glenn Fleishman writes about the growth of 802.11x WiFi wireless Internet access on commuter rail, bus and ferry boat now that it's commonly available in restaurants and coffee shops. The article also has an illustration by Al Granberg of some of the techniques used to achieve ubiquitous WiFi in motion."
It's only a natural extension of the hotspots popping up everywhere. Just a matter of time until anywhere with cell phone service will have net service... with the right provider.
I'll never make my computer vulnerable for attacks by anyone who just happens to drive by with a laptop and a wireless.
I'm much more interested in 10Gbit ethernet over copper.
Hopefully widespread adoption of WiFi services fuels the market for wireless network security. I know somebody who can't use his WAP because his neighbors keep hacking his encryption.
Can the hotspots also get data signals from, say, other stationary hotspots or a data wire implanted in the tracks?
newb question: is wifi good enough to play games on? With the new generation of high power laptops, pretty soon we could be having lan parties anywhere we go.
I know that the Japanese national railroad was working with Cisco to do WiFi a couple years ago. It was a real engineering challenge because the access points had to do handoff and authentication quickly enough to keep the trains computers on the network (this was initially for secure communications with computer systems on the train, commuter access was to come later). When your cells are only a couple hundred meters across and the train is moving at 300+ kmph.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I work for a relatively small public transit company in So Cal. All of our busses are already 802.11b enabled. As soon as they pull into the yard, they connect to an FTP server, and send reports containing the fare information, passenger data, and other things. It also updates the automated stop announcements, and anything else that we need to update.
As of now, the 802.11b isn't accessible to the public, but we're looking into making it available.
Interesting point. I think people are relying too much on e-mail and IM to communicate. Now with Wi-Fi everywhere, people will be sitting alone tapping on their keyboard everywhere. On top of that, people are working longer hours, and IMO getting less work done. I have yet to meet a person who has actually gotten any real work done sitting at a coffee shop. I know, I know, you work all the time in coffee shops, but I haven't met you yet... Why must we now have to introduce another way of distraction to places where people are accustomed to relaxing?..
What about the commuter that wants to take a nap on the train after a hard day's work. Does he now have to st there listening to you tap on the keyboard as you vainly try to finish an Excel speadsheet.
As a whole, i think it's not a great thing that Wi-Fi is everywhere.
Here in the UK we have Wi-Fi deployment now operating on the East Coast rail line. Rather than caching data in tunnels, the train switches to GPRS and is supposed to maintain its connection to the net using the mobile phone networks which have had the foresight to start providing coverage through tunnels on main railway lines.
Well I'm another Wi-Fi on the train user, somewhat irregularly but I can say at least on the PointShot trial that runs on VIA rail between Toronto and Montreal there is no need to limit oneself to "small text files and e-mail" the performance varies as you roll but it seemed to be better than dialup at all times.
Nah, cell phones took care of this problem a long time ago. Cell phones are good at helping people keep in touch with the people they are away from but also make them less in touch with the people they are around. Most people who are alone and bored in a public place are more likely to whip out their cell and bug a friend than to strike up a conversation with a stranger.
If the combination of trains (heavy and light rail) and buses that I spend 4 hours a day on had Wi-Fi, I could actually:
1. Reduce my work day by 4 hours, allowing for the commute time to be used productively and spending less time in the office
or
2. Add 4 billable hours to my timesheet if I am a contract developer with VPN access (which I am).
"I'm a karate man. Karate mans bleed on the inside."
My favorite part of the article:
In the United States, nearly six million people commute daily by public transportation, according to the Department of Transportation.
With an estimated population of 293,027,571 in July 2004 (from the cia world factbook)that means around 98% of the united states doesn't use public transportation.
Anyone else have an estimate for some place in Europe? Denmark maybe?
Lufthansa also offers wireless access on some of their flights. I flew from Munich to Los Angeles two weeks ago and used it. They have a free portal you can use or complete Internet access for $30 (which was too much for me to pay).
Honk if you're horny.
Airports, alot of them are now providing net access in the terminal, notable ones I can think of off hand:
- Pierre Elliot Trudeau (formally Dorval) in Montreal
- Dulles in Washington DC (mind you it seems to be iffy in parts of the airport)
Problem though I have found with alot of these connections is that many seem to be very picky about the cards you use to connect up to them. While at home I can easily run a Dlink Card and Linksys Router; but I have found that at the airports my connection drops alot more it might be the the odd router's they (might be) using...
As for other connection points I havn't had as much troubles myself but then again I could just be lucky.
Yay! Maybe these telecommunications/rail synergies will spur a resurgence of rail transport in the US. As measered in tons per mile per dollar, rail travel is by far the most efficient form of transport. Of course, there are other perfectly legitimate concerns such as connectivity (trains don't go everywhere that cars do), convenience (you have to synchronize your schedule to the train), and speed (jet planes are faster) which have made rail travel a modern loser in the United States. Well those things, and also brutal treatment by government.
But I am wondering if telecommunications can help to mitigate some of the more significant shortcommings of rail. For one thing, if you can make productive use of your time on the train, by telecommuting while you are commuting, that should make a big difference in deciding whether to drive or train. Secondly, back in the old days, if you did not live in a city, then your fancy store bought goods were purchased mail-order from the Sears catalog and shipped to you rail freight. People prefer to see goods for themselves, which might be why shopping malls and Wal-Marts litter the countryside now. However, the trend seems to be moving back to remote purchasing because you can now see the goods over the web. So does this mean that we can move back rail freight also, at least for shipment between regional hubs, if not door-to-door?
Another thing is, with automated inventory, it should be possible to track rail packages in transit to within a few meters. So no "it's on a train somewhere" answers when you ask about your package. If the packaging contains RFID tags, and the train has internet access and GPS, then it should be a matter of software to glue that all together and give me live reports over the web of where my package is. Its true that this is not the same thing as speedy transport, but it is predicatability. Speed and predictability both help solve the same problem, which is planning. You can achieve just-in-time delivery by fast transport, but in some cases you could use slower transport and earlier ordering if you also have predictable delivery.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
I ran kismet on a recent train journey and spotted the obvious Ap's called "train" on channels 1 and 6. A few passengers had left their centrino's on adhoc mode and I also picked up quite a few AP's as the train slowed for stations.
The interesting reason for this post is that they have handheld machines with WiFi to sell tickets and to take payment the till at the bar... for credit card authorisation.... arg.
I travel regularly on the train and the internet access doesn't always work. The train staff don't have a clue about the technology or how to make it work. The Ap's are poorly configured and I guess are hard to manage because they are always on the move!
rd