Watchdog and Wifi on trains

[reb0118]

Virgin........Well through Shap and arras around there it was non existent......

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Have Virgin started a new service though the chunnel to northern France? Sounds interesting.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

This. Pass of Drumochter, no mobile signal of any kind, but the free wifi on the Class 170 with 19 other users offered Facebook / this forum very well!

By an interesting coincidence, I was travelling north through the Pass of Drumochter on a ScotRail service a few days ago, with laptop on the table, and by Kingussie the stranger sitting opposite me who was gazing at his own laptop, spoke out with surprise at how fast the WiFi was. I could only agree.

 

[cyclebytrain]

Virgin have a big thing about how they provide you with better mobile phone connections. Well through Shap and arras around there it was non existent. I did wonder what the advertising agency might say about their claim.

As somebody who remembers when the phone boosters were being installed, I can say quite categorically that it's an awful lot better than it used to be over Shap!

 

[andyb2706]

Network Rail have or are close to finishing its roll out of the GSMR network across the country. For those who do not know what this is it is basically a digital communication system that operates over the airwaves between train crew and signallers with boosters that make it possible to communicate even when the train is in a tunnel. The rumours (and I emphasise they are rumours at the moment) are that only a small fraction of the GSMR capabilities are being used and that they may be looking at ways of allowing TOC's to use additional capacity to provide connectivity to the Internet for their customers. Whether this comes off is another thing but fingers crossed.

 

[jon0844]

The UK seems to be one of very few countries where hotels still charge for WiFi: in the rest of Europe, including some relatively undeveloped countries, free WiFi is standard (and is generally very good quality).

The trend now, as I've experienced in Spain and the US is to offer free WiFi that is heavily capped and traffic managed, and charge for speeds you'd likely want and need. The same is happening at some hotspots in pubs, restaurants, airports etc.

Demand means it's not realistic to offer free Internet to all, when people will now stream video. Thus, you restrict it and offer a lesser service if you still want to advertise you offer free access.

I remember some years ago when the WiFi first came to the East Coast, and they made much in both general and technical press of how they had done it, repeaters in tunnels and deep cuttings, etc, and a range of other clever stuff, and it all worked well.

Since then it has all gone notably downhill and is now pretty unusable for longer connections. I wonder what the issue is.

Again, it's demand. Even with improved 3G (DC-HSDPA) and 4G, users want and demand faster connections and use data more frequently than previously where business users might stay online but don't send or receive that much (mainly emails).

Those days are over. Personally, I use my own data connection. On Three, I can use 1000GB per month (soft limit) for £15, with tethering. So guess what I use in hotels around the UK?

Network Rail have or are close to finishing its roll out of the GSMR network across the country. For those who do not know what this is it is basically a digital communication system that operates over the airwaves between train crew and signallers with boosters that make it possible to communicate even when the train is in a tunnel. The rumours (and I emphasise they are rumours at the moment) are that only a small fraction of the GSMR capabilities are being used and that they may be looking at ways of allowing TOC's to use additional capacity to provide connectivity to the Internet for their customers. Whether this comes off is another thing but fingers crossed.

GSM is too slow, but if the sites were opened up to allow operators to add 4G at 800MHz, it would be a great way of covering the entire railway network.

 

[hassaanhc]

I used Virgin from London to Manchester and back in April, and I don't really recall having anything worse than the odd blip here and there (although it was in First Class)

 

[Hellfire]

I used Virgin from London to Manchester and back in April, and I don't really recall having anything worse than the odd blip here and there (although it was in First Class)

I travel VT Preston to London every week and the 3G signal disappears for long stretches between Stafford and Milton Keynes. I complained to my provider, 02 and they just said it was difficult to sustain game signal to a phone in a metal tube travelling at 125 mph. Maybe they have a point.

I don't use VT WiFi because they charge in Standard. However I do find I have to turn WiFi off on my phone or the VT signal blocks my 3G.

On the subject of Wifi abroad I'm writing this in Croatia where not only do you get free WiFi in most accommodation, even small guest house and appartments, but many of the towns have free WiFi hot spots. And the speed is as quick, if not quicker, than UK offerings.

 

[nottsnurse]

I don't know about that.

I've never been in a french hotel that gives free wifi - not even the 5* ones.

The vast majority of French hotels I've said in recently had free wifi, some though only offer a wired connection in rooms, with wifi in public areas.

 

[jon0844]

The vast majority of French hotels I've said in recently had free wifi, some though only offer a wired connection in rooms, with wifi in public areas.

Yes, that's another common thing - given it's probably particularly hard (and expensive) to provide Wi-Fi to multiple rooms.

I've been in hotels where the router/access points are clearly in the corridor and you will find yourself losing the connection frequently, swapping from one to the other and so on. All meaning a pretty pathetic overall experience, and not one that I've been able to work from.

I attend events where I need to upload photos and video, and being able to work from your hotel room is particularly important. Many times, it's impossible and I have no choice but to resort to using my mobile.

In Spain, this meant paying Three £5 per day for unlimited Internet. The upside (and it was cheaper than paying for what the hotel considered 'fast' Internet) was that I could continue my work anywhere in Barcelona. In fact, I encoded a video and put it on my phone so I could actually upload to YouTube while walking to the subway, and continued uploading it ON the subway!

To cut a long story short, given what people now want to do - with a high percentage of people in hotels likely wanting to stream iPlayer or whatever - the usual Wi-Fi provision is just not up to the task. Many can't cope with that many connections at once full stop, let alone balance the load.

Newer systems might work better, especially those that work on 5GHz Wi-Fi too, but I bet many hotels won't want to invest unless they have to. Thus, we'll see more speed capping and other restrictions.. and having to congregate in the reception areas to get the most reliable signal.

 

[starrymarkb]

The UK seems to be one of very few countries where hotels still charge for WiFi: in the rest of Europe, including some relatively undeveloped countries, free WiFi is standard (and is generally very good quality).

The trend now, as I've experienced in Spain and the US is to offer free WiFi that is heavily capped and traffic managed, and charge for speeds you'd likely want and need. The same is happening at some hotspots in pubs, restaurants, airports etc.

This was a Pentahotel in Germany. Speed test gave 0.01Mb/s with a ping over a second on the Free WiFi - also it would time out after an hour and require signing in again by clicking the small free access link under the login fields and logging in again (logging in on the default screen just took you to the premium payment page!)

 

[jon0844]

Another issue with some hotel Wi-Fi services is that you must log in and enter a unique code or room number, and it is for one device only. Thus, you bring your laptop and it's a choice of getting the laptop online or the smartphone. If there's more than one of you in the room, you'll possibly find one of you needs to pay to each get online.

If you have ethernet in the room, you can bring along a portable router and share the connection (and on my MacBook I can also share the ethernet connection via Wi-Fi), but I'd say Wi-Fi is getting worse in so many ways these days.

The days of just having a nice easy, no-nonsense, free Wi-Fi service with a decent speed is going to be more of a luxury in the future.

The best Wi-Fi in London at the moment would have to be sitting on a tube platform! I wonder how long you could sit with your laptop before being approached by someone to see why you're not travelling!

 

[dcsprior]

Nearly. 1 megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes.

Nearly. 1 megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes; 1 mebibyte = 1,048,576 bytes.

 

[Scotty]

Another issue with some hotel Wi-Fi services is that you must log in and enter a unique code or room number, and it is for one device only. Thus, you bring your laptop and it's a choice of getting the laptop online or the smartphone. If there's more than one of you in the room, you'll possibly find one of you needs to pay to each get online.

If you have ethernet in the room, you can bring along a portable router and share the connection (and on my MacBook I can also share the ethernet connection via Wi-Fi), but I'd say Wi-Fi is getting worse in so many ways these days.

The days of just having a nice easy, no-nonsense, free Wi-Fi service with a decent speed is going to be more of a luxury in the future.

The best Wi-Fi in London at the moment would have to be sitting on a tube platform! I wonder how long you could sit with your laptop before being approached by someone to see why you're not travelling!

There is a program called Virtual Router which turns your laptop into a wireless extender.. so if you just pay for a connection for one device, then you can share it using the laptop to your smartphone/other laptop

 

[jon0844]

There is a program called Virtual Router which turns your laptop into a wireless extender.. so if you just pay for a connection for one device, then you can share it using the laptop to your smartphone/other laptop

Yes, and as I said, I can do it natively on a Mac, but it's a bit of a hassle in comparison to using Wi-Fi.. but Wi-Fi just isn't sufficient a lot of the time these days.

It's not helped by the fact that so many people use their own phone/tablet as a wireless hotspot - and these also add to the congestion.

Even Ethernet connections aren't guaranteed to provide a good, reliable, service. I've stayed in some very nice business hotels, and been very disappointed.

Perhaps my expectations are too high (in that I need to download and upload large files, such as a 500MB-1GB video file to YouTube that I don't want taking hours) and not representative of the average needs, but I now expect to be offered a service that can give me 10Mbps or more at the very least, and a decent upload speed.

On my EE 4G account, I can get 70Mbps down and 50Mbps up. On Three it might be between 20-30Mbps down and 5-15Mbps up. As such, if I can get a mobile signal, I'm unlikely to use whatever a hotel provides.

 

[Norb]

never mind hotels, I was on a norwegian airlines flight last week and the free wifi at 9km high was outstanding, I could facetime audio with my wife, she wanted to know why the plane was so late taking off, till she realised I was over the North Sea

 

[edwin_m]

Yesterday:

Tried to pick up email in the 15min free wifi on a reasonably full 225 set. Nothing happened during the 15min and rather than pay £4.95 for another hour of probably nothing I thought I'd just pick up on the free wi-fi at Kings Cross.

Either I imagined it or the free wi-fi at Kings Cross no longer exists. The Cloud wouldn't connect to internet. Never mind, go over to St Pancras.

What was definitely free unrestricted wi-fi at St Pancras now makes you view an ad first. Fair enough except that the button to start the ad doesn't do anything.

Finally found some wi-fi at the meeting I was going to in London!

Wi-fi at the Travelodge in Croydon didn't work until 10pm despite me calling the yelpline some three hours earlier.

Today:

Still no Kings Cross wi-fi or working Cloud wi-fi there.

On a fairly empty 225 set the wi-fi worked pretty well so I ended up paying £4.95 for an hour to finish all the emails I hadn't been able to deal with for two days. That's pretty steep (I wasn't paying), EMT give you 3hr for that but in my recent experience EMT wi-fi is amongst the slowest in the western world.

 

[jon0844]

never mind hotels, I was on a norwegian airlines flight last week and the free wifi at 9km high was outstanding, I could facetime audio with my wife, she wanted to know why the plane was so late taking off, till she realised I was over the North Sea

I've used WiFi on SAS and it was pretty fast, but went offline quite often which was frustrating. Nevertheless, it's awesome and makes long flights very manageable.

 

[Carlisle]

Yesterday:



Still no Kings Cross wi-fi or working Cloud wi-fi there.

I have found the free cloud wifi offering that used to be pretty good quality in places like wetherspoons etc to be a bit hit and miss or sometimes non existent lately

 

[jon0844]

The Cloud was/is poor at Liverpool Street too. Seems to be only available on the concourse, as when on the train (platform 7 and then 17) the signal fluctuated all the time and was unusable.

Given the poor mobile reception at the station, I'm surprised Wi-Fi wouldn't be set to cover the length of every platform.

 

[AM9]

Sending this from Amtrak train 172, speed not blistering but perfectly good for e-mail and posting on threads like this. It's also free!

 

[jon0844]

I pay £15 a month for 1000GB of 3G or 4G, which is just about enough!

 

[Mark62]

I believe the TOCs asked the government to fund wifi on all trains. This is quite perplexing and many trains already have wifi. Yes in second class you have to pay extra for wifi but it's there. Maybe they wanted the funding to unblock the wifi in second class. Thankfully the government refused to fund something that already exists. Talk about bare faced cheek from the operators. Instead of having innocuous programs like this it's time we had something that actually shows the lengths the TOCs will go to to squeeze money out the taxpayer and unfortunate travellers. I travel in first class where possible because I can work in comfort with wifi and actually manage to move my legs. Travelling first class actually saves me money on chiropractor bills. After travelling second class on Long distance trains I am usually too crippled with pain to work thanks to the somewhat restrictive nature of the seats. If I book in advance it's also often cheaper by first class. Two return tickets are usually cheaper than two singles such is is ludicrous nature of our train network.

 

[rf_ioliver]

never mind hotels, I was on a norwegian airlines flight last week and the free wifi at 9km high was outstanding, I could facetime audio with my wife, she wanted to know why the plane was so late taking off, till she realised I was over the North Sea

So it was you who was using all the available bandwidth!

On a recent Lufthansa flight they specifically announced that telephony apps such as Skype, FaceTime etc (with or without video!) would be blocked due to people hogging the bandwidth and then complaining.

You could of course use the satellite telephone system for a cost but with GSM base stations now becoming available on aircraft even that system is going to go.

For the most part you really only need bandwidth for Facebook and Twitter postings..."Hey! I'm on a plane/train" is the same whether spoken or written

I remember back in the 90s the next big thing on aircraft was going to be video conferencing so you could have a business meeting while flying to meet your customer...think about the confidentiality implications for a moment and you might see the biggest reason why this fails...though doesn't apply to Facebook or certain mobile phone users from what I see

t.

Ian

 

[185]

Sending this from Amtrak train 172, speed not blistering but perfectly good for e-mail and posting on threads like this. It's also free!

All fair and well on a 50% full train, but on my trip from DC to Newark in April, it was shockingly slow.

Conductor even made an announcement apologising due to extremely high usage!

 

[jon0844]

When EE installs more 4G sites alongside the rails, just access it directly I say. When there are a lot of users, WiFi on the train can become really bad - and depending on where you sit and how many other people are using it, a lot of the problems aren't down to the Internet connectivity but your connection to the access point.

 

[Starmill]

The wi-fi at St Pancras is really annoying with the ad. Mine kept disconnecting and then reconnecting and making me watch the App again! I've also had lack of free cloud wifi at places that are supposed to have it recently :/

 

[infobleep]

Talking of wifi, I have free WiFi with O2 but all it recently wants to do is keep returning me to the screen saying I've been logged in whenever I try to go anywhere else. Not spent the time ringing their helpline yet. I just use 4g instead.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[najaB]

Perhaps my expectations are too high (in that I need to download and upload large files, such as a 500MB-1GB video file to YouTube that I don't want taking hours) and not representative of the average needs, but I now expect to be offered a service that can give me 10Mbps or more at the very least, and a decent upload speed.

Put simply: yes, your expectations are too high. Those bits don't come free, so if you want to move billions of them around then someone has to pay for it. Either everyone through higher ticket/room prices or you by paying for it directly.

 

[68000]

Network Rail have or are close to finishing its roll out of the GSMR network across the country. For those who do not know what this is it is basically a digital communication system that operates over the airwaves between train crew and signallers with boosters that make it possible to communicate even when the train is in a tunnel. The rumours (and I emphasise they are rumours at the moment) are that only a small fraction of the GSMR capabilities are being used and that they may be looking at ways of allowing TOC's to use additional capacity to provide connectivity to the Internet for their customers. Whether this comes off is another thing but fingers crossed.

GSM-R is a 2G network, there is a piece of work to make GSM-R use packet switching for ETCS as the bandwidth is just not there in 2G. No chance with GSM-R will made available to the travelling public

There are many challenges to what you have said, the main one being that the GSM-R network was installed, against the wishes of many local residents, without planning permission for the masts as it used the railways permitted development rights. My understanding is that to now make the infrastructure available for non-operational railway use would jeopordise the PDR.

Interference from o2 and Vodafone on the 3G side and possibly 4G is having a real affect on the operation of the railways and is costing millions of £ in extra infrastructure and schedule 8 payments to operators when the delays and cancellations happen.

 

[jon0844]

Put simply: yes, your expectations are too high. Those bits don't come free, so if you want to move billions of them around then someone has to pay for it. Either everyone through higher ticket/room prices or you by paying for it directly.

I do pay for it. £15 a month. Buys me 1000GB. How much should a hotel charge me?