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WiMax Hits 100 mph on Rails to Brighton
judgecorp writes "T-Mobile has put a Wi-Fi service on the London to Brighton Express commuter service. It uses WiMax (ok, pre-WiMax) for the uplink, and is cheap enough to put on any other long-distance rail service. One interesting thing is that they didn't need to wait for next year's "mobile" WiMax version: the system can handover between base stations at 100mph, using today's pre-WiMax (802.16d) products. The only drawback - in June the free trial ends, and we'll have to pay T-Mobile's high Wi-Fi charges."
The only drawback - in June the free trial ends, and we'll have to pay T-Mobile's high Wi-Fi charges.
May this not end up as bad as cellphone service.
High charges? On the British rail network?
NEVER!!!
If the service is this easy to implement it should only be a matter of time before railway equipment manufacturers like Alsthom offer trains with wifi preinstalled. That should break T-mobiles extortionate charges.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
100 mph WiMax hits the rails to Brighton
Service uses WiMax uplinks for Wi-Fi on the train
By Peter Judge, Techworld
Commuters from Brighton to London's Victoria station can use free broadband on the train, thanks to a Wi-Fi-and-WiMax service. The Brighton Express is an apt place for a pioneering Wi-Fi service, given Brighton's role as a high-tech media-savvy remote suburb of London (and home of more than one Techworld stalwart), but T-Mobile hopes to make this the standard way to deliver Internet connectivity on the move.
Users get an 802.11b Wi-Fi service in the carriages. A pre-WiMax system from Redline connects from antennas on the carriage roofs to base stations by the side of the track (very much like the non-mobile system at the Science Museum). The service was integrated by Nomad Digital, a WiMax specialist, and will be offered free by T-Mobile for a trial period.
Goodbye to satellites
"This is the first broadband Wi-Fi service on trains in the UK," said Jay Saw, manager for T-Mobile Hotspot, the company's Wi-Fi service. Wi-Fi has previously been provided by satellite based systems, on GNER (Great North Eastern Railway) and Virgin Trains, but the T-Mobile service on Southern Railways' Brighton service gives a fast upload as well as download, he explained.
The service is not actually complete: 37 base stations are in operation, and around 60 will be needed to cover the whole line, explained Nigel Wallbridge, of Nomad Digital. In the meantime, users get continuous service, as the service migrates to GPRS - using three modems per train - when it loses the WiMax signal. When the base stations are all in place, it will be a 60 mile-long hotzone, said Saw.
The service is also limited by the uplinks from the base stations - most of which use commercial ADSL services at up to 2 Mbit/s. "This is the right bottleneck to have," said Wallbridge. "It is easy to upgrade those links, and there is plenty more capacity in the pre-WiMax links, which can go up to 32 Mbit/s."
So far, only one of Southern's Brighton Express trains has Wi-Fi, with another 14 scheduled to get the service as it is rolled out.
No need to wait for mobile WiMax
Surprisingly, the system does not need any of the refinements that are proposed for the mobile version of WiMax, 802.16e, which will not be available till next year. Instead, it uses a standard early implementation of 802.16d, according to Simon Wilder, sales director of Redline.
"Mobile WiMax is being designed with a view to ad hoc connections of mobile laptops," he explained. "In this system, there are a limited number of devices connecting by WiMax, with known IP addresses, and they are moving in a very predictable manner." Redline's equipment gives very good latency handling, he said.
Negotiating access to the cupboardThe companies would not talk about the commercial arrangements, although it costs around £30,000 and 30 man-hours to install equipment on a train, and £5000 to place a base station by the track. Most of the base stations so far have been sited on Southern's railway stations.
Both T-Mobile and Southern clearly see this as a test-bed. Both say they want to expand access on trains, but will wait to see how well the Brighton service is used.
T-Mobile approached Southern asking for a train to experiment with around 15 months ago, and Nomad has developed the service since then. As well as the Wi-Fi access points, The train carries a server, two WiMax routers, a GPS / GPRS box, and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), all of which fits into a rack in one small cupboard.
One of the trickiest parts of the negotiation was getting access to that cupboard, said Wallbridge: "It used to be where the driver kept his sandwiches, and we had to reach an agreement."
Now the service is announced, usage has been climbing rapidly, with big peaks in the morning rush hour, says Saw. In June, T-Mobile will start charging at its normal rate for Wi-Fi hotspots - £5 per hour, or £13 for a one day pass (which can be used at other T-Mobile hotspots such as Starbucks).
Southern staff will probably be able to sell Wi-Fi vouchers, and leaflets about the service, but technical support will be by phone to T-Mobile.
In a battle between WiMax and Doppler shift, I'm putting my money on Doppler.
If my experience of the London-Brighton line is anything to go by, the money would be much better spent :
i) installing more seats or adding extra carriages
ii) actually cleaning the inside of the trains from time to time.
It's no use getting a WiFi connection if you have to stand up the whole bloody way.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
"The Brighton Express is an apt place for a pioneering Wi-Fi service, given Brighton's role as a high-tech media-savvy remote suburb of London"
Since when has Brighton been a "high-tech media-savvy remote suburb of London"? As far as I'm aware, the only thing Brighton's particularly renowned (infamous) for is its status as the UK's San Francisco...
We Build Beautiful Websites
Never mind the wi-fi, I'm impressed by the fact that a UK train reached 100mph in the first place.
Am I the only one getting tired of all these uninteresting stories about WiFi being available here or there?
Yes, you can bridge hundreds of wireless routers and have humongous hot spots, yes you can get WiFi on moving spaces, yes you can go to the desert and have a connection over large distances and maybe beat this week's world record.
We know that.We really do. WiFi is great, it's this awesome magic thing that allows you to download the interweb out of thin air. Now knock it the hell off.
Thanks you.
When will T-Mobile, SBC, Telarama, et al all realize their wifi business model sucks? I mean seriously, 5 bucks an hour, 20 bucks a month? For scattered coffee shops and book stores that I maybe frequent once a week? None of them has anything near enough coverage to make a subscription worth my while and their hourly rates are way too high. Maybe for a certain sector of the populace, those earning six figures and those who spend a lot of time in coffee shops, this is acceptable, but to middle america (where the real money is) it stinks. Maybe if they all pulled their resources and allowed me to log into any of their collective hot spots for a reasonable (~$15) monthly fee I'd consider it.
You always here how other countries implement newer standards or make the technology leaps a lot earlier than we in the US do. I wish we would catch up. I guess that story about downtown Philadelphia getting wired and making it available for all at a somewhat reasonable price is good news but it wasn't WiMax I don't believe. I wonder how much this service will cost after the free period is up.
http://tech-hawg.blogspot.com
There goes another brilliant service down the drain.
High User Access Charges: The reason why services like these remain hugely unpopular.
Irony though is, service providers spend a fraction of what they earn over these services. Yet the "its-a-premium-service-hence-we-milk-you" syndrome keeps them from bringing the charges down. When will the service providers understand that term premium is only notional. Mobile was a luxury only 10 years ago -- now a country like India as 100mn cell users -- why ? because its low-cost.
Price is an entry barrier -- and high prices let less and less people use a service, and recommend it to other users. I just hope T-mobile understands that and keep the charges minimal, so that more users use it. And OEMs can provide more cheap solutions leveraging the service -- like wi-fi for train-staff communication.
If you have to stand up the whole bloody way, there's a good risk of people seeing your lovely wifi laptop and stealing it or your bag once you get off. It's no use getting a WiFi connection if you can't use it, just to be safe.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
T-Mobile is the mobile spin-off from Deutsche Telekom. They are active in many countries, and overcharge in all of them!!!!
See my journal, I write things there
WiFi is much cheaper to roll out than, for example, UMTS or GPRS data. However they don't want to undermine their cellular data business model.
See my journal, I write things there
Working at Tiscali in London and living in Brighton, this now means I'll be able to get my PSP and do some multiplayer online gaming from the comfort of my seat - oh happy days. Unfortunately I have to pay £3960 per year to *GET* to london from Brighton every day (50 miles for those not in the know), but atleast this will make the trip a little easier to handle :) (wondor what my ping will be?)
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On these trains, door-opening is controlled by GPS. This is GREAT when the train is stationed in the open air, not so good when the train is standing under the concrete sarcophagus that is Victoria Station.
Great, now I can stand on the platform at Three Bridges and get WiFi access for free for a few seco...
I've tried twice but I haven't got it working yet.
I have it because it's my primary internet connection. I live one block from a hotspot and I get it from my house. $30/month for a T1 (that almost nobody else uses) is not that bad even though it's NAT'd.
The account is good at thousands of hotspots world wide (including, I assume, this train one), so really it's a pretty good deal.
I've been thinking of getting a Sidekick -- then the fee for a TMob Hotspot account would drop to $20. =P
(Just to stress that I'm not astroturfing here -- I don't think I'd pay for this service if it weren't my primary internet connection at home... There's lots of free hotspots available at all sorts of businesses and public places... but if I traveled a lot more and were well-payed, I think I'd do it.)
Their rains are nicer (and faster) too. Still costs £8/hr unless you are in First Class (in which case it is "free"), but that isn't too bad if you are working - not so good for personal use though. They are one of the better train companies although £124 to travel from Leeds to London in peak hours isn't cheap!
>The maximum speeds is somewhere around 60MPH!!!
Trolling rubbish
"The Inter-City 225 is the fastest train running in the UK. 225 refers to its maximum speed of 225 km/h 140 mph. This train operates on the East Coast Mainline." (www.o-keating.com)
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
Middle America is not where the real money is. The real money is in the 2% or so of the population who have the lion's share of the wealth. Middle America's job is to help the people at the top get richer. It's the 19th Century all over again.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
Do Japanese trains offer Wifi? I bet Eurostar - hang, on I bet everyone else with High Speed trains offers WiFi. Is this some kind of subtle taunt?
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
True.
However, the London-South Coast trains are limited to about 60mph. Might be a bit higher but nowhere near 140.
Setting off on a Dirty Weekend with your WiMax hardware for company.....
- Locutus
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
...now where the f*** is Brighton?
Oh, wait...
That's way too expensive. As of next month I'm going to be doing the London/Brighton run every day (a total of nearly 4 hours a day) and I'd love to have web access for that journey time but £13 per day, for 5 days a week, would ammount to almost the same as I'd pay for the actual rail ticket. Try £13 a week and I'll be interested.
The maximum line speeds on the UK train network is 125mph, not 60mph. In the former southern region 'commuter belt' typically they are a bit lower, around 90-100mph.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
It would be rather ironic if VOIP sounds better using a WiFi connection then it does using standard cell networks.
:)
Can you hear me? Now....now...how bout now? Wait just a sec, let me fire up Skype mobile. Ahhhh...much better.
Life is not for the lazy.
If the charges are anywhere near as bad as the WiFi hotspot at London City airport, no thanks. Expensive and restrictive. You can't just, say, buy 15 minutes to check your email, the minimum is 1 hour - usually for about GPB6 or so - and you can't just use 15 mins one day, then 15 the next. (By contrast, in an airport, those 'payphone style' internet kiosks are GBP4/hr and you can buy just 15 minutes for £1 if you want, and you don't get to use up your laptop's battery).
Since I've already paid for GPRS access on my mobile phone, I'll just use my GPRS thanks. Although it's only 64kbit/s, for going on IRC, writing emails and Slashdotting it's more than adequate, and it works well on the train as well as in airports.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
As an American, it's the European *train services* that I would like to have in the States.
When has the London to Brighton train ever run @ 100mph :)
As a long-suffering commuter, this news is really astounding. The London-Brighton express can reach 100MPH!
Of course, the speed of the train is pretty much irrelevant if you put the hotspot on the train, which is what GNER have been doing with their long-distance services for the last two years.
But who am I to quibble?
Take commuting into central London. Even with the outrageously high rail fares, it's still cheaper for most people to commute by train than car when you factor in the high-price of parking in central London, and not to mention the Congestion Charge.
...and I can tell you that the implementation is very, very poor.
Not only do they not provide connectivity via a true AP, DHCP is still unable to dish out addresses - I've been getting 169.254.* since they turned it on...
Oh, and it's only available in 3 of the 12 carriages of the train, and only on one train so far...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Quite steep. Have you considered other modes of transport, such as private helicopter hire? Someone in Bristol worked out it was cheaper for him.
"Goodbye to satellites"
I don't think so. The new trains use satellites to lock and unlock the doors. Unfortunately, a connection cannot always be made with the satellite and travellers have to wait a few minutes for them to open the doors. The driver usually blames poor weather conditions. Who would have that would be a problem in the UK?
Oh well, at least you can download stuff while you are waiting for the blasted things to open.
This isn't rocket science, get some Linksys WRT54GS's, load OpwnWrt Linux on them and write a simple script and provide internet for free.
I would think it's harder to set up the computers to run the trains. This is simple and you only need one "cable modem" connection for the whole thing, running cat5 the entire way.
And RV'ers have been using satellite internet for years now, even while driving, that's not rocket science.
Why do you have to call some big corporation to do this?
(only kidding about the cat5)
The maximum line speeds on the UK train network is 125mph, not 60mph. In the former southern region 'commuter belt' typically they are a bit lower, around 90-100mph.
I spend approximately 4 hours per day on trains commuting between Brighton and Guildford.
I can't be bothered to look up the distances, but the last time I worked it out it came to an average speed of about 25mph. I shit you not.
You can use the posts at the side of the track (spaced out every quarter of a mile) and a stopwatch to calculate the speed. I once did this in Ireland, clocked the Dublin to Belfast Enterprise service at 115 mph between Drogheda and Newry.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I was talking on a Verizon cell phone while driving 100 mph a few years back and it held the signal just fine.
I'm guessing (if I remember that part of the UK well enough) that you have to change trains at least once, and the trains you are getting are local 'all stops' (or at least most stops). Even with the world's most efficient train operators, you're not going to improve much on that.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
As long as they have enough people who pay the freight, bitching or not, nobody else can say that the price is too high to be a "good business model".
...
What we can say, which is essentially the same thing, is "it seems likely that another pricing scheme not only would serve me better, but also make higher profits." You're right that any business model which is profitable could be considered good, but if there's another one that provides more utility and higher profits, the first one becomes what economists call "bad."
Or something, I've forgotten most of that class. Anyway, the specific argument in this case is that wifi is rarely offered as an independent service -- it's offered only as a tangential plus to another service, like coffee or rail travel. In this context, you don't just have to look at how much the wifi makes, but what effect it has on business in general. I for one significantly prefer shops with free wifi, and I'm not alone -- when Schlotsky's Deli offered free wifi throughout the US, they found that something like 1 in 4 customers listed it as a factor in choosing where to eat
The statistics I barely remember from a year ago don't hold much weight, I'll grant you -- but the point is that we don't have to trade anecdotes, we can look at actual case studies. My money is on free wifi translating to better business, and for-pay wifi adding expenses that significantly limit its profitability. In that context, the GP is correct -- wifi providers would do well to get their minds right.
I've setup an ad-hoc wireless network at 40,000 ft and 600 MPH so I could play multiplayer Half-Life.
Hmm... Shouldn't this be tried on Caltrain (http://www.caltrain.org/)? I mean, you want a tech-savvy audience -- how about putting it on a commuter train between San Francisco and Silicon Valley... I think ridership would increase and people would be willing to pay extra for the service. The trick would be getting a company to help offset the cost of the installation.
just my blog and pix
GNER has had WiFI on (faster) trains running between Aberdeen / Leeds and London. The single drawback is that the firm that set it up, Icomera having just sold a system to a Swedish train company, Linx AB, appears to be routing through Sweden, meaning that your default google becomes google.se. Oh. And the GNER website has a lovely little map which updates itself as you wind up & down the country, showing you where you are. In sum, it rocks.
The distance is 82km, the time taken is 52 minutes on the fastest service (most are slower), which only makes one short stop at East Croydon. That's an average of 95km/h or 59 miles per hour.
Anyway, the Eurostar has a higher top speed in normal operation of 300km/h, but it has travelled at 208 miles per hour (335 km/h) in Kent. It does not go to Brighton.
"Yes, you can bridge hundreds of wireless routers and have humongous hot spots, yes you can get WiFi on moving spaces, yes you can go to the desert and have a connection over large distances and maybe beat this week's world record."
The big news here is that they're using WiMax. WiMax has something like a 3km range. They then bridge it to wifi to make it compatible with mobile wifi laptops.
Vote for Pedro
" When will T-Mobile, SBC, Telarama, et al all realize their wifi business model sucks? I mean seriously, 5 bucks an hour, 20 bucks a month? For scattered coffee shops and book stores that I maybe frequent once a week?"
The goal behind WiMax is a mobile connection that's good everywhere, like a cell phone. WiMax has something like a 3 km range, so the 802.16e solution can be implemented using cell tower like structures to blanket an area. You'll pay a monthy fee, and can get rid of your wired broadband connection if you like.
Vote for Pedro
... you forgot, Al Gore invented it!
You're at least 10 years behind the times, old chap.
There's a service directly from Reading to Gatwick. It goes via Blackwater, Sandhurst, and Guildford. I know this cos I used to work in Guildford and sometimes travelled there from Bristol (Bristol-Reading-Guildford).
Lovely service, drunk toffs when the Royal Ascot is on etc.
HA HA HA!! That was funny.
>London to Brighton does nowhere near 225km/h
That's probably why I said "This train operates on the East Coast Mainline"...?
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
s/any other decent/any decent/
Or become a BTOpenzone customer and you can roam at t-mobile hotspots at a fraction of the costs.