East Coast Free Wifi

[Butts]

Well I have finally bitten the bullet and loaded my laptop (the size of a suitcase ops) into the ruckie for my journey from FKG to Hull this morning via East Coast and Connections.

Luddite Butts should have done it much sooner - I have been surfing for free the speed is ok and watching programmes I'd downloaded at home on BBC I Player whilst enjoying my free brekkie

One thing I am curious about it's free in 1st and chargeable in Cattle - how can they tell which carriage your in especially if they are on "the border" between "heaven and purgatory".

Writing this from my hogged "4" in L and looking at all the saps sitting in their allocated seats - its quite busy on the 0800 ex EDB

 

[maniacmartin]

As far as I'm aware, they can't tell. If you sit in standard, at the end of the carriage next to first, you can usually receive wifi from 1st without paying.

 

[Butts]

As far as I'm aware, they can't tell. If you sit in standard, at the end of the carriage next to first, you can usually receive wifi from 1st without paying.

Yes this is what I suspected, but not being technical I wondered if they could block it somehow

 

[Crossover]

I have sometimes just picked up the free WiFi at the end of coach E on a Pendolink before too, so it is possible.

East Coast is a tad different as us mere mortals get 15 minutes free browsing on a journey (though you can get more ) anyway, before it becomes chargeable.
At places like Edinburgh where the units sit over for a while if you stand/sit somewhere outside FC, you'll pick it up too (used that once to get WiFi on my iPod Touch during disruption in bad weather )

I would imagine that (this is from a techie btw, so hopefully it will make sense) the WiFi installations will be done such that the power output of the wireless signal is enough to just cover the carriage (relatively small area as far as wireless communications are concerned) and the use of an appropriate antenna (I won't go into it, but there are many!) means the signal is concentrated on the area it needs, so it doesn't spread too much.

I have seen before the Access Point (AP) names on trains before, where they have another SSID to masquerade as the TOC WiFi. Thus, they will have an AP in each coach and the fact everything around the coach is metal will then block a lot of the scatter between carriages.

Any wireless installation has a lot of considerations, but I'd imagine for on board WiFi, there will be a few more as well.

Just my thoughts on it anyway

 

[hacman]

Generally this is done by having APs in each car, and the power is then limited. This is also to ensure that passengers only connect to the AP in their car, as connecting to an adjacent one may not provide such a great connection.

The APs then connect into switches which are arranged within the trains network to determine who is in FC, and who is in STD and should therefore be sent via the portal for payment.

Rail WiFi works in the same way as home or office equipment, the only difference being that the hardware has to be approved for use on the railway.

 

[Butts]

I have become addicted to this in a matter of days - I should be reading my newspaper not posting inane drivel onboard

 

[fireftrm]

There is an access point in each carriage. Having said that it is usually so slow it can be near to worthless, only any good on a nice quiet train. Lots of users and my dongle is on, so free it may be, but useful? Normally not.

 

[Crossover]

There is an access point in each carriage. Having said that it is usually so slow it can be near to worthless, only any good on a nice quiet train. Lots of users and my dongle is on, so free it may be, but useful? Normally not.

I seem to recall someone I was travelling with managing to download 6GB of data once...no wonder it didn't work for me then!

It can be very bad in places (it is 3G after all) but in other places it can be very quick

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

My only problem is the trial times. IMHO it should be a 30 minute trial rather than a 15 minute one. EC do know about this (well they did, they'll probably have forgot) so, well, who knows what's to come?
If only Virgin had trials-_-

 

[yorkie]

My only problem is the trial times. IMHO it should be a 30 minute trial rather than a 15 minute one.

Out of interest, why?

If it was 30 minutes, surely less people would buy it as they'd have done most things they needed to in that time?

 

[Nym]

Why should WiFi even be free anyway, there are only really two or three destinations radiating from London on the EC network that have any form of compitition in a rather small sector of the market, so why bother?

(South Tyneside, North Yorkshire, West West Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and parts of Linconshire)

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

Out of interest, why?

If it was 30 minutes, surely less people would buy it as they'd have done most things they needed to in that time?

That is a good point. I know when I need to check my stuff I need 15 minutes and nothing else. I also have at least 2 electronics on me on long distance train journeys so technically I can get 30 minutes if I would need to.
I would like to find the opinions of other East Coast users who have used the wifi a lot. How much time would be best for you people? 10? 15? 30?

 

[yorkie]

How much time would be best for you people? 10? 15? 30?

Best for what? Getting online for long enough that you don't feel the need to pay for it?

 

[calc7]

Also bear in mind that activities on the EC site such as checking connections and booking tickets can be done outside the free 15 mins.

 

[Yew]

Hopefully in the future we will see 4G receivers, offering better speeds and coverage. If they made it free too it wouldnt be a bad call. Lots of places on the high street have free wifi (McDonalds, Wetherspoons, starbucks) It could help in making rail more attractive, and cause a slight revnue increase.

The chances are by the time the railways have 4G based wifi, any paid for system would be uncompetitive with mobile devices and contracts.

 

[hacman]

4G is on the horizon for these services, we just need the carriers to deploy it.

Also - its not (usually) "just 3G". I can't go into details, but there is more going on behind the scenes to make the connection (usually) faster and more reliable than a single 3G dongle.

Obviously though, if other users are hammering the service the result will never be great! No matter what is done the bandwidth is shared between everyone on the train. QoS and such can be deployed, but this is not always practical.

As for the free trials/charges, it depends on the basis with which the TOC involved has commissioned the service. Some take the revenue directly themselves, some provide it free at their cost, others hand the revenue to the provider. Either way, offering it free in 1st is always a good way for them to improve their offering.

Jon

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

Best for what? Getting online for long enough that you don't feel the need to pay for it?

Well...erm, yeah. I suppose (like I may have said already) that you should get a 10 minute voucher with everything you buy from the shop on an EC train, with a limit of 30 minutes, in addition to the 15 minutes you already get. It would be nice given it takes about 10 minutes to drink a coffee and you can have some nice wifi to go with that. Then again, is this idea suitable? Would it sell?

 

[SS4]

The chances are by the time the railways have 4G based wifi, any paid for system would be uncompetitive with mobile devices and contracts.

I wouldn't be so sure, with the larger networks the trend has been to reduce inclusive data or to have it as an optional extra where they can charge more for it. What'll be interesting to see is whether or not the likes of 3 and giffgaff can force the hand of the larger operators to better deals which, for the most part, they've been unable to do with 3g.

You could have the fastest internet around but it won't be much cop if we still have data limits in the order of 500MB/1GB.

 

[Flying Snail]

Hopefully in the future we will see 4G receivers, offering better speeds and coverage. If they made it free too it wouldnt be a bad call. Lots of places on the high street have free wifi (McDonalds, Wetherspoons, starbucks) It could help in making rail more attractive, and cause a slight revnue increase.

High street retailers have access to inexpensive DSL or Cable broadband backends which assuming they require anyway for business purposes means they can offer wifi to their customers with little extra cost to them.

Useable on-board systems require a much more expensive set-up to access multiple 3G and satellite networks which all incur access costs over and above any systems necessary for train operation. Despite this the available bandwith is a fraction of that available to fixed locations so as well as the cost issue offering free access to 500+ people on a train will most likely mean too much demand for the system to deal with and a useless connection for all.

 

[yorkie]

Well...erm, yeah.

So, let me get this straight...

15 mins is not enough time for you to do what you need to do. 30 minutes is enough. So you have asked EC to allow more time for the "trial" so that you would not need to actually buy it.

And you think this makes good business sense for EC?

 

[mirodo]

I wouldn't be so sure, with the larger networks the trend has been to reduce inclusive data or to have it as an optional extra where they can charge more for it. What'll be interesting to see is whether or not the likes of 3 and giffgaff can force the hand of the larger operators to better deals which, for the most part, they've been unable to do with 3g.

You could have the fastest internet around but it won't be much cop if we still have data limits in the order of 500MB/1GB.

Going OT, but giffgaff are perfectly able to offer unlimited 3G at the moment (on their standard tariffs rather than the data-only ones, anyway). As they're a wholly owned subsidiary of O2, I suspect that the lack of unlimited data only tariffs is a business decision rather than having their hands tied by their parent company.

 

[D6975]

When did EC start charging?
I did a NE rover in the summer of 2010 and it was free unlimited use in standard class then.

 

[Mojo]

When did EC start charging?
I did a NE rover in the summer of 2010 and it was free unlimited use in standard class then.

October 2010:
http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/about-us/latest-news1/wi-fi-is-changing/

 

[D6975]

Thanks for that Mojo. I missed that change back then, but living in Bristol I don't frequent the EC website that often.