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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."
They are currently in the process of replacing all the trains on the london to brighton line with nice new ones, which are a lot better.
It is a very busy line however, at peak times people are bound to have to stand no matter how many seats there are.
You'll notice the gp wrote "British rail network" not "British Rail network". Of course there's a British rail network. It runs on track owned by Network Rail, with services operated by the TOCs. It may have many owners, but there's still a network. You can still use one ticket to travel between any two stations in the country.
I'm impressed it reaced 100kph. I'm even more impressed they managed to get the driver to give up his sandwich shelf.
Now seriously Branson has had his trains touching on 140mph for a while now. The Eurostar runs at 186 mph this side of the channel. The record is 208 mph in the UK on a Eurostar test run.
The Intercity 125 is an exceptional train as important as trains like the Flying Scotsman. It is the reason so little of the UK is electrified. Still very much in use today it can reach 125mph, quite execeptional for a Diesel.
Past generations converted hundreds of miles of wide gauge track in the southwest was to standard gauge in a weekend. The victorians built hundreds of miles the Edinburgh to Inverness line in two years, why does it take so long to replace worn out rails today with modern equipment like JCB's and tunnel boring machines.
Philip
Signatures are broken
The south west is simply not electrified, you mean the south. I come from North Devon and believe me it's the back of beyond. It's a wonder the trains are not pulled by horses. Modern innovations like cable TV and large multiplexes are unknown.
The Pendolinos are just like the voyagers and supervoyagers except they are a little bigger inside. They are fast though, really fast. You really appreachiate the difference when you go to London on one and come back on one of Bransons relics.
Philip
Signatures are broken
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!
It's closer to central London in terms of journey time than many places inside Greater London.
The intercity trains are diesel-electic i.e. a diesel engine powering a big generator powering an electric motor. So in actual fact the diesel engine doesn't go very fast.
I seem to remember that back when the intercity trains were being tested before introduction they had one up to 180mph but they were only ever allowed to go up to 125mph because of track conditions and other safety fears.
No you can't. Take London -> Birmingham as an example. You can buy cheap Chiltern tickets for trains that take ages and go via Oxford and Leam. Or you can buy more expensice Virgin tickets for trains that go via Coventry.
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
All the people I've met who worked at Amex hated it, so I can see why it would give you a bad impression, especially as that area of Brighton isn't particularly nice either.
We've become known for "high-tech media savvy" because of the large number of new media companies down here, bolstered by efforts like the free wi-fi network on the beach (between the two piers, well, the pier and the remains of the other pier.) And in various pubs, the active new media community (including companies, freelancers, and organising groups)
There's lots going on here, it's just the surface of Brighton is quite grimy and in parts rather grim, so you don't see it immediately.
"What if they're using IE?" "I've dumbed Mozilla down to cope with it." - BOFH
Really.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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?
...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...
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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.