# Wifi trains: who has tried it?



## Christopheroth (Jan 23, 2008)

Hello,

Has anyone tested Wifi on trains on the Capitol Corridor (or elsewhere)? Is it reliable and easy to use? What content can be accessed on the front page: weather forecast, games, details about the journey or destination?

I searched the forum and the internet about Wifi on trains in the US, but there are mostly news which date back to 2003-2005, when Amtrak started to implement onboard Wifi.

Thanks in advance for your answers!


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## AlanB (Jan 23, 2008)

So far the only Amtrak route that I'm aware of that does have Wi-Fi is the Capital Corridor and they are still in the process of completing the implimentation of Wi-Fi. Therefore not all trainset actually have Wi-Fi and those that do may still be having issues and/or possible drop outs in service.


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## Trogdor (Jan 23, 2008)

Since you said "or elsewhere," I'll mention my experience using WiFi while riding VIA from Toronto to Windsor last November. Coverage was decent. It was spotty at times, but it was on more than it was off.

If you needed a constant connection for some reason, it probably wouldn't suit you, but if you just need to download e-mail/read a few websites (where your connection can be idle at times), it works fine.

Come to think of it, I did use WiFi once in 2005 while riding the Capitol Corridor. I only got a signal while the train was in the station in San Jose. Once we started moving, I lost the signal, never to regain it. I don't know if that was supposed to be on-board WiFi, or if it was at-station WiFi that I happened to reach from the train. It was certainly associated with Amtrak, though (I believe the network name was "Capitol Corridor" or something to that effect).


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## PerRock (Jan 24, 2008)

I had an idea which if brought up thru the right people might go somewhere. instead of wifi on a train once could put ethernet jacks next to the power plugs and then you could have a sat uplink either in each car or in just one car and link em.

peter


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## Chris J. (Jan 24, 2008)

PerRock said:


> I had an idea which if brought up thru the right people might go somewhere. instead of wifi on a train once could put ethernet jacks next to the power plugs and then you could have a sat uplink either in each car or in just one car and link em.
> peter



I suspect a wifi access point is cheaper than running the cables needed and a big hub to drive it all. It's less to maintain and there are are devices that can use wifi but don't have ethernet ports (PDAs for example).

If the OP includes wifi on trains across the pond (i'm in the UK) i've used it on the GNER (and now National Express) services on our east coast mainline. The connection does drop out from time to time, and the latency seems pretty high, but for surfing and email it's fine, instant messaging works but you get kicked off every now and then, i guess when the connections drops out. I'd not like to play Counter Strike over it though 

I believe the system uses a combination of cell phone (GPRS/3G) technology and sat links. You appear out onto the big wide internet from a .se address, so the i guess it's a Swedish company who provide the data service.

It used to be free for first class passengers and standard (coach) passengers could pay for usage (you could do it online with a credit card). However now it's free for all passengers.

Cheers

Chris


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## Joel N. Weber II (Jan 24, 2008)

Providing a single wired ethernet jack to a seat probably costs $100 to $200 just to buy the parts and pay someone to install them. (Though maybe it's not quite that bad; I'm probably thinking of Boston area labor rates here, and train cars can be moved to areas with lower labor rates fairly easily.) You can find entire wireless access points in the $100-$200 range. You might want a nicer access point, but a nicer access point still costs a lot less than wiring dozens of seats.

Wired ethernet does provide dramatically higher performance than wireless ethernet, which can be a good thing in an office environment where you might be connecting to a file server, but if you're just going to feed everything through a cell phone modem, wireless ethernet has way more bandwidth than the cellular modem, and there's probably not much benefit to the wired ethernet.

I suspect the real issue may be availability of cell towers offering the service at a price Amtrak wants to pay.

On the other hand, Amtrak owns some real estate that's fairly valuable to telecommunications providers; a company that wants fiber optic cables going for hundreds of miles typically finds that railroads are in a strong position to provide fiber along that sort of route. Amtrak might be able to negotiate a deal with a cell carrier where one of the perks for Amtrak is that they get a volume discount on Internet connectivity for the trains, at least over the tracks Amtrak owns. Or Amtrak might be able to put in their own infrastructure; there's already fiber along a lot of the NEC tracks Amtrak owns. But if they had to put in some sort of radio site every mile, and each radio site cost $5k (which I think is probably way lower than what it would really cost), times 500 miles, that's $2.5 million. (The fiber optic cables don't provide power, which means you might need to pay the local power company to bring power to the radio site; where the tracks are curvey, you might need a higher density of radio sites, etc etc etc.)

(Then there's also the question of whether cheap consumer networking hardware is robust enough to survive the vibration of a train; if not, some of those cost estimates above may be way lower than the cost of something that would work reliably in that environment.)


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## GG-1 (Jan 24, 2008)

Aloha

I can think of a few that would use Wi-Fi extensively on a Long Distance train, But I would much prefer it's Availability at Service Stops, while moving I prefer to see and photograph scenery,  plus meet new people while traveling


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## Joe Commuter (Jan 2, 2009)

For the best WiFi on trains go see www.wifirail.net... They have figured out how to get high-bandwidth onto the trains.


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## ALC Rail Writer (Jan 2, 2009)

When I was waiting in King Street Station in Seattle waiting to depart-- a Sounder came and parked next to us. I was able to use the WiFi from our train for about 20 minutes, from what I here many people have ditched the busses in favor of Sounder for that reason in that area.


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## MattW (Jan 2, 2009)

If power's a problem use solar panels. If you use a high-gain antenna then you increase the effective power without increasing the power fed to it. Night and clouds and snow is a problem, but other roadside gadgets use solar and dont' seem to be affected.

The problem with a mile-by-mile system is the handoff between access points. When I worked for my school's IT department, sometimes moving laptops between areas of the school and thus different APs caused problems, and not just for that particular laptop, and we were only walking at 3-4 miles per hour!

That's the reason the jerks at the faa won't let you use your cellphone in ANY plane commercial or otherwise, the cellphone access points supposedly can't keep up with the speed. It's definately not interference, if that's the case, then the planes couldn't operate where there was significant radio energy like around airports with radars and VORs and NDBs and GPS satellites...hmm, that's an idea, shut down the airspace, and force everyone to take Amtrak!


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## transit54 (Jan 3, 2009)

MattW said:


> That's the reason the jerks at the faa won't let you use your cellphone in ANY plane commercial or otherwise, the cellphone access points supposedly can't keep up with the speed. It's definately not interference, if that's the case, then the planes couldn't operate where there was significant radio energy like around airports with radars and VORs and NDBs and GPS satellites...hmm, that's an idea, shut down the airspace, and force everyone to take Amtrak!


I think the FAA has acknowledged that there's not an interference problem, but are now keeping the regulation in place due to public feedback. They considered revising it a year or two ago to allow cell access on planes (still would require additional equipment on the air carrier's part) but the public outcry (I among them) was so substantial they kept the present rule in place. It's bad enough being strapped between two strangers for hours at a time, I don't need to listen to them yell into their cell phones the whole time... I'm willing to consider inflight cell access, but only if it was $10/min or something like that, to ensure that people kept calls short and only made them when absolutely necessary. That, or install phone booths at the back the planes where people can take the conversations away from me. On a train, at least, I can usually find another seat or move cars if someone is being really obnoxious.

More OT, I also used on-train wi-fi on VIA's Toronto-Montreal corridor. At times it was a bit slow and once the signal dropped, but it was otherwise good. Domestically, the MBTA is working to implement it on many of their commuter trains (http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/wifi/). They also have it on some of their boats. The Bridgeport, CT to Port Jeff, LI ferry also has it. Every so often there's talk of my transit agency implementing it on our commuter busses, but right now I've got enough projects going on to make that anywhere near a priority...


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## ALC Rail Writer (Jan 3, 2009)

The FAA's policy regarding the use of cell phones is: 'We recognize that cell phones do not pose any danger to the vehicle, however, as plane designs change and are adapted then we are playing it better safe that sorry.'


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## AlanB (Jan 3, 2009)

MattW said:


> That's the reason the jerks at the faa won't let you use your cellphone in ANY plane commercial or otherwise, the cellphone access points supposedly can't keep up with the speed. It's definately not interference, if that's the case, then the planes couldn't operate where there was significant radio energy like around airports with radars and VORs and NDBs and GPS satellites...hmm, that's an idea, shut down the airspace, and force everyone to take Amtrak!


Actually I believe that the problem is the opposite, it's not the hand off's that an issue, it's the fact that at the altitude of the planes you are actually hitting too many towers with your signal.

And of course the airlines don't like the idea since the Airphone is such a great source of revenue for them.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2009)

Just to post a cross reference link...

Offtopic: Mass MBTA and Wifi


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## Trogdor (Jan 4, 2009)

AlanB said:


> And of course the airlines don't like the idea since the Airphone is such a great source of revenue for them.


Is it?

Granted, I don't fly that often, but in my last few flights on Northwest, Delta, Alaska Airlines, and one or two other carriers, I don't even remember seeing any Airphones on board.


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## Tony (Jan 4, 2009)

rnizlek said:


> It's bad enough being strapped between two strangers for hours at a time, I don't need to listen to them yell into their cell phones the whole time... I'm willing to consider inflight cell access, but only if it was $10/min or something like that, to ensure that people kept calls short and only made them when absolutely necessary.


I agree fully, but only up to a point. The in-flight charge should be more like $500/min, with $400/min of that being split between the passengers sitting around you (the "passenger annoyance surcharge"). 

Back to Amtrak, WiFi should only be offered in Sleeper cars. That would keep access private, and with that, eliminate the "appropriate content" problem. It would also not turn electric outlet access into an even more of a problem than it already is today.


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## Ryan (Jan 4, 2009)

Tony said:


> Back to Amtrak, WiFi should only be offered in Sleeper cars. That would keep access private, and with that, eliminate the "appropriate content" problem. It would also not turn electric outlet access into an even more of a problem than it already is today.


That's really easier said than done - the signal is going to propagate beyond the sleepers. If you put a password on it, it'll keep the casual user off of it, but no wireless security can stand up to serious scrutiny (like perhaps a bored teenager with a laptop and hours to kill sitting in coach on a LD train).


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## AlanB (Jan 4, 2009)

rmadisonwi said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > And of course the airlines don't like the idea since the Airphone is such a great source of revenue for them.
> ...


Well it used to be at least. Don't know if it still is.


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## AlanB (Jan 4, 2009)

HokieNav said:


> Tony said:
> 
> 
> > Back to Amtrak, WiFi should only be offered in Sleeper cars. That would keep access private, and with that, eliminate the "appropriate content" problem. It would also not turn electric outlet access into an even more of a problem than it already is today.
> ...


Actually it probably won't propagate to the coaches overall, with the exception of the EB. First don't forget that the train car makes for a hostile environment for radio signals. All that glass and metal means less signal travel, one reason that the engineer with his more powerful radio and external antena does the communications with the dispatcher.

Second, except for the EB, you have the diner and the cafe car between the coaches and the sleepers. So unless one installs mega strong broadcast equipment, the signal will be pretty darn week by the time it gets to the coaches, if it reaches them at all.

IIRC, when I was coming home this past October from the Gathering on the Chief, I couldn't pick up the credit card Wi-Fi signal from the diner and cafe cars, and I was in the Trans/Dorm, which put me two cars away from the diner.


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## MattW (Jan 4, 2009)

Computer networking equipment is extremely robust regardless of what anyone says. I forgot where the actual numbers were listed, but it requires something like less than one thousandth of a watt at the computer's receiver to be able to successfully communicate; and that's with the antenna embedded in a PCM/CIA or computer, not an external antenna.

Because everyone's not a tech-savy person on Amtrak, the network must be left open with only one of those enter-passkey-on-browser-page thing that hotels use. Those can be cracked, but are not as easy as WEP for instance.


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## Gus3rain (Aug 10, 2009)

I am pretty sure that there is ample technology to get wifi on board Amtrak trains and I don't see any reason why it should not be added onto say lounge cars or anywhere for that matter. If cost is an issue I think that even if there were a small fee to get an access code to use the internet.... of maybe 5 or ten dollars, many people would be plenty happy to pay for it, and over a few years the cost of instalation would pay for itself. By 2008 ridership estimates, if only 1 out of 25 riders were to pay 5 of 10 dollars to use the wifi (which seems to be a low estimate), 10 million dollars could be generated each year to pay it off its initail cost. Other benifits of wifi would include increased customer satisfaction and more people would take amtrak because of this amenity. Right now many of the bus lines are boasting wifi and are taking away potential ridership because of this. Also many business people ride the acela express and would benifit from being able to complete there work on their computers during the commute!!!!


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## manchacrr (Aug 11, 2009)

The Downeaster, which runs between Boston's North Station and Portland, ME, has free Wi-Fi service for all passengers.


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