how fast is the wifi connection on Amtrak trains?

[TimSpencer]

how fast is the wifi connection on Amtrak trains? (between DC, Chicago, NYC)

thanks!

 

[Dutchrailnut]

slower than S**t

 

[TimePeace]

My (limited) experience with wifi on Amtrak is that it barely works, if at all. And email or two can get thru, but mostly forget about large file transfers or even basic web browsing. Most of the time.

 

[zephyr17]

No WiFi between New York and Chicago or DC and Chicago.

 

[NorthCoastHiawatha]

Slow as hell most of the time. Also while there is wifi from DC to NYC there is no wifi between Chicago and NYC/DC

 

[afigg]

how fast is the wifi connection on Amtrak trains? (between DC, Chicago, NYC)

In my experience, the WiFi speeds have improved on the NEC. Was better last fall, even for full trains before the 4G upgrades AFAIK. That is for the Regionals, I can't speak for the Acelas because I have not taken one recently. Amtrak has upgraded the Acelas to 4G, and is in the process of doing so for the Regionals and eastern Amfleet I equpped trains, although they may have completed the upgrade by now.

The answer for NYC or DC to Chicago is easy: there is no WiFi on the long distance trains, so the speed is NULL. Have to provide your own 3G/4G data link on the LD trains.

 

[R30A]

Actually, when the Lake Shore has an Amfleet 1 lounge, which isnt particularly rare, it does have Wifi(In the lounge). And since not too many people have access to it, the speed isn't bad at all!

 

[BCL]

You're dealing with a shared WiFi network that's connected to a shared 3G/4G network. It can be OK if nobody else is using it. Now add a few hundred of your closest friends and your slice of the pie is razor thin. When I have difficulty using Amtrak's WiFi I just disconnect and use a cellular connection directly and it almost always becomes usable. This may not be an option for laptops or tablets with only WiFi.

Now the time I was at NY Penn Station the WiFi provided by Amtrak was as fast as my cable Internet connection at home and also allowed video. However - that must have been sourced directly from some wired or fiber connection.

 

[Acela150]

When I have traveled on the overnight train between PHL and BOS it has good speed. Mostly because most of the passengers are asleep.

 

[Anderson]

NYP-WAS is decent on the Acela. On the Regionals, it's hit-or-miss almost everywhere, varying with your location, demand on the network, and a bit of dumb luck with the routers.

WAS-CHI and NYP-CHI: No wifi on the LD trains, though you can often grab a connection at Cumberland, MD on the local downtown net when you stop. On the Empire trains (NYP-ALB-BUF), I believe there's wifi, but I've never taken one of those. NYP-ALB, the connections are often decent (if sometimes erratic due to the hills on the banks of the Hudson) on the Adirondack, at least.

 

[AlanB]

I'm writing this from 2117 and the connection has been quite good. No videos of course, as that is blocked, but otherwise service had been decent. Yes, it's not a cable connection, but general navigation and page loading has been fine.

 

[TimSpencer]

I'm writing this from 2117 and the connection has been quite good. No videos of course, as that is blocked, but otherwise service had been decent. Yes, it's not a cable connection, but general navigation and page loading has been fine.

guess I'll have to use the proxy service to get around video blocking... I assume it's the same method they use on airplanes? I managed to use Netflix... video quality was low, but watchable on planes.

but that's probably useless if the wifi is so slow.

 

[BCL]

I'm writing this from 2117 and the connection has been quite good. No videos of course, as that is blocked, but otherwise service had been decent. Yes, it's not a cable connection, but general navigation and page loading has been fine.

guess I'll have to use the proxy service to get around video blocking... I assume it's the same method they use on airplanes? I managed to use Netflix... video quality was low, but watchable on planes.

but that's probably useless if the wifi is so slow.

Once I was just dying to get video for a game on WatchESPN while I was on board a plane and paid for WiFi. It was GoGo on United, and their terms were that they wouldn't block video outright, but that they reserved the right to assign preferences if one user managed to hog up the bandwidth. At times it was OK, but most of the time the quality was low and it would occasionally drop out due to inadequate bandwidth. It was perfectly adequate for low bandwidth stuff like news websites. I also let my wife use it for a couple of hours.

Will a proxy service really help if it's just blocking file or data types? I sense that's the way that Amtrak's WiFi system blocks video. It's not blocking my access to WatchESPN or YouTube per se, but once I try to get the video going it just times out.

 

[AlanB]

I'm writing this from 2117 and the connection has been quite good. No videos of course, as that is blocked, but otherwise service had been decent. Yes, it's not a cable connection, but general navigation and page loading has been fine.

guess I'll have to use the proxy service to get around video blocking... I assume it's the same method they use on airplanes? I managed to use Netflix... video quality was low, but watchable on planes.

but that's probably useless if the wifi is so slow.

It will be if you bypass things & try to stream video. Remember, this is nothing more than a cell phone connection. Just using your own cell phone to stream isn't exactly efficient and fast.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Until recently, on the Pacific Surfliner, it has been very slow, with sometimes 400+ people all trying to be on at once. On my trip this April, however, the speed was great the entire way!!! No music that requires an internet connection (Spotify, Pandora, etc.) and no videos, but the internet itself was moving much much quicker even on a crowded Friday afternoon train.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

On my way back from NTD (WAS to WIL) I tried a couple of times to connect and couldn't.

No big deal, I had my eReader to keep me entertained.

 

[Dan O]

I have never been on the train in an area that has WIFI but I had to laugh at the title of this thread. How fast is anything that is associated with Amtrak? Some things are but some not so much. Dan

 

[amamba]

It is just rude to try to bypass the block and stream video. The service is slow enough as it is - don't make it suck for everyone else.

 

[BCL]

I have never been on the train in an area that has WIFI but I had to laugh at the title of this thread. How fast is anything that is associated with Amtrak? Some things are but some not so much. Dan

I've mentioned that Amtrak has WiFi at several waiting rooms. The speed at NY Penn Station was really, really fast. Even with dozens of people using it, the speed was still fast because they probably had a fast source.

I wouldn't expect that any train based WiFi would be that fast unless it could somehow completely commandeer all the cellular bandwidth available. The issue would be that the train's source would be treated like any other customer (maybe with priority to get a 3x or 4x share), but then that's divided up among dozens to a few hundred users. Now if you could just have a train drag along a large optic fiber bundle like you'd find at a major research university or large business, then I think even a thousand people would no problem and nobody would be looking to restrict video. If the source is land based, then the amount of bandwidth can be enough that hundreds of users wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Acela150]

It is just rude to try to bypass the block and stream video. The service is slow enough as it is - don't make it suck for everyone else.

Ditto. There was a Mother and Daughter who got on 66 with me in BC and they were streaming Netflix. Which slowed the connection down quite a bit.

 

[dlagrua]

Yesterdays WiFi connection on the Acela was very good but in fairness the train was not operating at weekday capacity.

 

[afigg]

Amtrak posted a news release on May 16 on the deployment of 4G upgrades: Amtrak Wi-Fi Gets Better Speeds and Connectivity. 4G is now on all Acelas and the California corridor trains, will be on all eastern Wi-Fi trains with Amfleet Is by late summer. I think at some point, Amtrak would deploy WiFi to the Horizon cars at least to cover the Midwest corridor trains, even if the LD trains are left out because of spotty cell coverage.

WASHINGTON – Amtrak has upgraded its AmtrakConnect cellular-based Wi-Fi service to take advantage of 4G technologies that are improving performance and enhancing the passenger experience.

The 4G upgrade is already complete on Acela Express and the California-supported Capitol Corridor, Pacific Surfliner, and San Joaquin services, and will be rolled out to all remaining Wi-Fi equipped Amtrak trains by late summer, including the Northeast Regional.

“We continue to place a strong focus on improving customer satisfaction, and this upgrade is delivering the improved speeds and connectivity required to maintain a competitive edge,” said Deborah Stone-Wulf, Amtrak Chief, Sales Distribution and Customer Service.

Acela passengers have already been noticing a positive improvement in performance and have been commenting publically through social media.

Stone-Wulf explained that AmtrakConnect continues to be provided at no additional cost, is available on trains that serve 75 percent of Amtrak passengers, and routinely supports between 30 and 50 percent of passengers on a given train.

While cellular upgrades to 4G are improving the service, the onboard demand for data continues to grow. To maximize the Wi-Fi experience for passengers, data-heavy activities that can slow everyone down, such as streaming video and music, and file downloads larger than 10MB, will continue to be restricted. This will ensure high-volume data users onboard the train are not able to degrade the Internet experience for others.

 

[CHamilton]

Amtrak ought to look into this.

Ericsson makes bus windows part of a Wi-Fi network

Ericsson may have a contender for oddest networking product if it commercializes the wireless bus windows it demonstrated at this week's CTIA Wireless trade show.

The windows would have built-in, translucent antennas connected to an internal Wi-Fi system for passenger use while on the road. In the example Ericsson showed at CTIA, the dual-band Wi-Fi antenna was just a square of barely visible red metal embedded between layers of glass.
...
Ericsson's solution had its origin in a problem for wireless users on buses, cars and trains. [emphasis added] For insulation and sun protection, some windows are now being built with thin, translucent layers of aluminum sandwiched between glass. Combined with the metal that covers the rest of a vehicle, those windows essentially create a so-called Faraday cage, a box that blocks all outside radio waves, said Bryan Coley, a marketing program manager at Ericsson.

Travelers in such a vehicle can't get online using the outdoor cell network, because it's signals are blocked. But Ericsson researchers decided to use the metal-in-glass principle to their advantage by building antennas into the windows along with the insulating metal. Though the window antennas are simple passive antennas, each one reinforces the internal network's signal.

The resulting network becomes like an in-flight Wi-Fi system on an airliner. Passengers log in to an internal Wi-Fi network that uses a longer range technology, such as LTE, to connect to the outside world.