Why is Wi-Fi limited and so poor?

[_toommm_]

I’m on a RailJet from Wien to Praha today. It has free, fast, unlimited Wi-Fi throughout the four hour journey. No registration required. The train goes through some pretty rural parts, including sparsely-populated forests. Yet I can stream 4K video pretty much constsntly when my phone struggles for signal.

Why then in England do we only get 100-ish MB of allowance for non-streaming, and why is the phone signal so bad (my iPad maintains at least 4G for most of the route).

 

[futureA]

Because you can’t plug a train into a fibre optic cable and starlink isn’t at full strength yet.

The railway could build its own private wireless network to broadcast the signal from trackside to the train, but that would be expensive.

So instead on board Wi-Fi relies on mobile phone infrastructure.

 

[_toommm_]

Because you can’t plug a train into a fibre optic cable and starlink isn’t at full strength yet.

Therefore the railway either needs to build its own private wireless network to broadcast the signal from trackside to the train, but that would be expensive.

So instead on board Wi-Fi relies on mobile phone infrastructure.

So how do the Czech get it so right. It’s not a general question of why Wi-Fi is so bad, it’s wondering why others can do it so so well.

 

[Adam Williams]

The 4G/5G infrastructure that Icomera and co rely on hasn't been invested in properly along many of the biggest and busiest lines in the UK

Even now, on some of the newest railway lines in the UK's capital there's been a stunning indifference to the importance of connectivity.

 

[kaiser62]

When the government sold the part of the radio spectrum for use in mobile networks (GSM specifically) they were a little foolish in that they required the bidders to commit to covering something like 94% (from memory) of the population within an agreed period. However, the government lawyers not being particularly tech savvy thought that it should be based on where they lived and not on transport corridors. Not particularly clever.

 

[leytongabriel]

It is maddening.
Often better on buses than trains!

 

[Alanko]

Our slightly skimpy loading gauges potentially make it a faff to install and maintain the sort of backhaul needed to supply continuous 4G to trains, versus that of the Czech Republic where they have more room to play with. Presumably in most cases it is a case of routing fibre in and around existing infrastructure. I assume all the kit would need to have an ironclad guarantee not to interfere with signalling, etc, in any circumstance as well.

 

[mrmartin]

Basically it's Network Rail incompetence, almost inexcusable really.

There is already fibre (conduits at least but there is no reason it couldn't use another wavelength on the existing fibre) + power down all the electrified railways. It just needs some masts and some 4G/5G base stations added down the route. NR haven't done anything about it for 20 years, despite demand and the operators wanting to install it, and I think would pay handsomely NR for access.

However, it is starting to change. NR have allowed Cellnex to start installing the kit down the Brighton Mainline (https://www.networkrailmediacentre....onnectivity-along-the-brighton-mainline-route).

Seems to be a strange british failure to not allow companies to do this. Took years for the tube to allow it; most other cities subway networks have had it for many years (decades?).

To be fair though your RailJet experience is not typical. I've been on a lot of trains over Europe and most of the time the signal is pretty bad. Ok to send some messages and read some webpages; but definitely don't think I could stream 4K in the main.

 

[Energy]

I assume all the kit would need to have an ironclad guarantee not to interfere with signalling, etc, in any circumstance as well.

Fibre doesn't cause any interference issues. The power supply is DC so only induces a current in other cables for a very short time when it is switched on, as it is low amperage and low voltage it isn't much of an issue.

There is already fibre (conduits at least but there is no reason it couldn't use another wavelength on the existing fibre)

NR now has an exclusive agreement for access with Neos Networks, wouldn't be surprised if Neos provided their own network their to be used by other network operators like on the Underground.

 

[Peter0124]

The HS1 tunnels under Stratford etc gave me full 4G signal despite being relatively deep underground.

 

[Dai Corner]

There is 100% mobile coverage of the railway for the GSM-R system, but that is only for operational purposes such as driver-signaller communication. Could mobile operators be allowed to use the physical infrastructure to provide a service which passengers could use directly or via on-train wi-fi? Quite possibly, but would it be worth their while commercially?

 

[dosxuk]

Basically it's Network Rail incompetence, almost inexcusable really.

I would put it down more to "who's responsibility is it to pay for all this".

People's expectations of the sort of speeds and availablity of internet access have significantly changed in the last 15 years. The days when an external antenna to a router loaded with SIMs would be sufficient to give the handful of people access to their emails on the move are long gone - but that is what got installed on lots of stock, as it was adequate at the time it was installed. Nowadays, is it really in the TOCs interest to be operating high grade WiFi networks on their trains, connected to multiple high speed connections that they've had to pay to be installed, when all their passengers could just connect to the existing networks directly?

Likewise, the mobile network operators will quite happily come and install base stations where they're asked to, but unless it's a location that they've identified needs a better signal, you can expect to pay for it. It's not in their interest to provide a backbone of high capacity down a 100 mile corridor of mainly open countryside, just for a handful of users twice an hour, when they could be spending money on areas that will bring them more customers.

Seems to be a strange british failure to not allow companies to do this. Took years for the tube to allow it; most other cities subway networks have had it for many years (decades?).

The underground is a special case, especially the deep level stuff - there is no space available and the equipment required is unlike anything else the mobile operators are used to. Couple that with the unwillingness for the mobile operators to share the physical layers of their hardware, and suddenly you find yourself needing to find space for four installations rather than one - and all of the operators are quite happy to lawyer up if they think they've been short changed against one of the other operators, so you can't even do a first-come-first-served job.

 

[swt_passenger]

There is 100% mobile coverage of the railway for the GSM-R system, but that is only for operational purposes such as driver-signaller communication. Could mobile operators be allowed to use the physical infrastructure to provide a service which passengers could use directly or via on-train wi-fi? Quite possibly, but would it be worth their while commercially?

Probably not, AIUI the NR permitted development rights were used to build the masts, but even then there were significant planning disputes in some areas. The masts could therefore only be used for railway operational purposes as you mentioned, ie signalling and operational comms.

 

[Alanko]

The HS1 tunnels under Stratford etc gave me full 4G signal despite being relatively deep underground.

The emitter(s?) must be down in the tunnel itself.

I recently had perfect 4G coverage down in Kongens Nytorv subway station in Copenhagen. It is a new station, so presumably has all the kit installed down there.

 

[mrmartin]

I would put it down more to "who's responsibility is it to pay for all this".

People's expectations of the sort of speeds and availablity of internet access have significantly changed in the last 15 years. The days when an external antenna to a router loaded with SIMs would be sufficient to give the handful of people access to their emails on the move are long gone - but that is what got installed on lots of stock, as it was adequate at the time it was installed. Nowadays, is it really in the TOCs interest to be operating high grade WiFi networks on their trains, connected to multiple high speed connections that they've had to pay to be installed, when all their passengers could just connect to the existing networks directly?

Likewise, the mobile network operators will quite happily come and install base stations where they're asked to, but unless it's a location that they've identified needs a better signal, you can expect to pay for it. It's not in their interest to provide a backbone of high capacity down a 100 mile corridor of mainly open countryside, just for a handful of users twice an hour, when they could be spending money on areas that will bring them more customers.

The underground is a special case, especially the deep level stuff - there is no space available and the equipment required is unlike anything else the mobile operators are used to. Couple that with the unwillingness for the mobile operators to share the physical layers of their hardware, and suddenly you find yourself needing to find space for four installations rather than one - and all of the operators are quite happy to lawyer up if they think they've been short changed against one of the other operators, so you can't even do a first-come-first-served job.

You're quite misinformed how this works. Network operators are and have been willing to pay NR for access for years. That's just a fact - as the Cellnex BML "partnership" shows. I totally disagree on train WiFi has ever been acceptable - way too many not spots along the route with no data whatsoever (again, because NR turned down the telcos to install lineside kit). I have never seen it working well in 15 or so years I've tried it.

And the model isn't that each operator installs their own kit (and that's not really how it works for the tube!) - you get a 3rd party to install a network, which then subleases it to each of the MNOs that pay them for access it and maintain it.

Clearly I'm not suggesting network operators are falling over themselves to install on rural branch lines. But the main intercity lines would and should be covered like this.

Personally I think NR should have prioritised this years and years ago as it is a massive productivity booster for passengers for very little cost (in railway terms), even if NR did have to pay something towards it. It could have easily been done when GSM-R was rolled out.

 

[william.martin]

So how do the Czech get it so right. It’s not a general question of why Wi-Fi is so bad, it’s wondering why others can do it so so well.

Because we're tight

 

[68000]

You're quite misinformed how this works. Network operators are and have been willing to pay NR for access for years. That's just a fact - as the Cellnex BML "partnership" shows. I totally disagree on train WiFi has ever been acceptable - way too many not spots along the route with no data whatsoever (again, because NR turned down the telcos to install lineside kit). I have never seen it working well in 15 or so years I've tried it.

And the model isn't that each operator installs their own kit (and that's not really how it works for the tube!) - you get a 3rd party to install a network, which then subleases it to each of the MNOs that pay them for access it and maintain it.

Clearly I'm not suggesting network operators are falling over themselves to install on rural branch lines. But the main intercity lines would and should be covered like this.

Personally I think NR should have prioritised this years and years ago as it is a massive productivity booster for passengers for very little cost (in railway terms), even if NR did have to pay something towards it. It could have easily been done when GSM-R was rolled out.

Network Rail installed GSM-R (and the backbone FTN) under permitted development rights. One of the provisios of PDR is 'operational use' therefore NR did not need planning permission for all those GSM masts and associated equipment rooms. The moment you commercialise the network, PDR is not valid and NR would have had to go through the quagmire that is planning permission which would have put the whole GSM-R rollout programme back years

 

[mrmartin]

Network Rail installed GSM-R (and the backbone FTN) under permitted development rights. One of the provisios of PDR is 'operational use' therefore NR did not need planning permission for all those GSM masts and associated equipment rooms. The moment you commercialise the network, PDR is not valid and NR would have had to go through the quagmire that is planning permission which would have put the whole GSM-R rollout programme back years

Fair enough, they could have started the planning permission process much earlier for the network though. Or have lobbied government (given they are part of it) for a change to PD rights.

 

[Dave_Cardboard]

The emitter(s?) must be down in the tunnel itself.

Wi-Fi 101: (I don't doubt much of this applies to cellphones also, though I have no expertise with cellphones.)

All Wi-Fi stations (whether it's a thing nailed to a wall or the thing in your hand) are both transmitters and receivers. It's a two-way radio "conversation" between communicating peers like walkie-talkies, not a one-way radio "lecture" like a television transmission. Thusly there is no such thing as "Wi-Fi Signal" as most people conceive it, not even as a metaphor; Wi-Fi is not availed by some ethereal energy field like The Force or Ley Lines. The airwaves are silent until "something" wants to send a packet of data. I talk, you listen, you talk I listen. Which has the consequence that "only one thing at a time can transmit." The more "things" there are, the more data they want to transmit, the more competition, (it's anything but "fair" for Wi-Fi,) there is for the available "air time." (Though as I understand it, cellphones are a little different in that they also employ some form of Frequency Division Multiplexing.) Later iterations of the Wi-Fi standards (called 802.11) are employing a few tricks to try and mitigate the air time contention to improve throughput and on big deployments we have always used multiple Wi-Fi cells to try to reduce the air time contention by using different radio frequencies for neighbouring cells and distributing the clients between the cells.

When I am teaching Wi-Fi, I advise people to think of it in terms of sound as a metaphor. Look at any given scenario and (rhetorically) ask "how would I be doing this if I was using sound" and that is often pretty much how Wi-Fi works.

The "emitters" might technically be called "transceivers" (being a portmanteau of "transmitter receiver") though some might debate whether the transceiver is "just" an electronic component, the electronics plus antenna or the entire base station.

 

[30907]

So how do the Czech get it so right. It’s not a general question of why Wi-Fi is so bad, it’s wondering why others can do it so so well.

CD is steadily refurbishing rolling stock (mostly acquired second-hand) and fitting decent wifi at refurbishment is a no-brainer). The Railjets are essentially an Austrian design so were fitted from new, ditto some units.
However the rollout of WiFi there is pretty recent, and the same is true in other countries.

 

[Energy]

Wi-Fi 101: (I don't doubt much of this applies to cellphones also, though I have no expertise with cellphones.)

WiFi is just a small cell operating in an unlicensed bit of spectrum.

When I am teaching Wi-Fi, I advise people to think of it in terms of sound as a metaphor. Look at any given scenario and (rhetorically) ask "how would I be doing this if I was using sound" and that is often pretty much how Wi-Fi works.

Great explanation of WiFi. Sound is a good way of putting it, the loudness is impacted by walls and the louder a room the more difficult it is to send/recieve.

 

[spag23]

Wasn't a major plank of HS2's Cost Benefit Analysis the reduction of the the time (by about 40 minutes?) that businessmen would be out of contact with their office/customers? What would happen to that CBA if there were ever (at the cost of millions of pounds) good connectivity on the existing trains between Euston and the North/Midlands?

 

[rf_ioliver]

Basically it comes down to where the infrastructure (base stations) have been placed and available bandwidth.

Forget GSM-R ... it uses a very specific place in the radio spectrum, you can not use this for general data traffic ( security aside, there's just not enough available bandwidth there ). Even if you do cover the are with base stations then you have issues regarding how the rest of the spectrum is allocated and be very aware of power levels and interference between different bands in the spectrum, especially if GSM-R signals start getting swamped out by the surrounding bands.

Then it just comes down to infrastructure, if the equipment and coverage isn't there then you are not going to get a signal or enough signal/bandwidth. Now add in things like roaming, base station handover and the absolute need to stream 4K video to your phone because you can't be away from FaceTok for 30 seconds

 

[Flying Snail]

Wi-Fi 101: (I don't doubt much of this applies to cellphones also, though I have no expertise with cellphones.)

All Wi-Fi stations (whether it's a thing nailed to a wall or the thing in your hand) are both transmitters and receivers. It's a two-way radio "conversation" between communicating peers like walkie-talkies, not a one-way radio "lecture" like a television transmission. Thusly there is no such thing as "Wi-Fi Signal" as most people conceive it, not even as a metaphor; Wi-Fi is not availed by some ethereal energy field like The Force or Ley Lines. The airwaves are silent until "something" wants to send a packet of data. I talk, you listen, you talk I listen. Which has the consequence that "only one thing at a time can transmit." The more "things" there are, the more data they want to transmit, the more competition, (it's anything but "fair" for Wi-Fi,) there is for the available "air time." (Though as I understand it, cellphones are a little different in that they also employ some form of Frequency Division Multiplexing.) Later iterations of the Wi-Fi standards (called 802.11) are employing a few tricks to try and mitigate the air time contention to improve throughput and on big deployments we have always used multiple Wi-Fi cells to try to reduce the air time contention by using different radio frequencies for neighbouring cells and distributing the clients between the cells.

When I am teaching Wi-Fi, I advise people to think of it in terms of sound as a metaphor. Look at any given scenario and (rhetorically) ask "how would I be doing this if I was using sound" and that is often pretty much how Wi-Fi works.

The "emitters" might technically be called "transceivers" (being a portmanteau of "transmitter receiver") though some might debate whether the transceiver is "just" an electronic component, the electronics plus antenna or the entire base station.

While all of that is interesting reading, it is not the Wi-Fi that is the issue. The Wi-Fi units in the train carriages will be working acceptably, it is the internet connection by 4g/5g from the train to the network masts that is the bottleneck.

Although saying that, multiple idiots in close proximity trying to stream 4k video to look at on 6 inch screens is going to clog up any system if there are enough of them.

 

[XAM2175]

Forget GSM-R ... it uses a very specific place in the radio spectrum, you can not use this for general data traffic ( security aside, there's just not enough available bandwidth there ).

Proposals involving the use of GSM-R are thankfully very uncommon, haha. The issues involved in co-locating 4 or 5G equipment with GSM-R on the other hand shouldn't be understated, as those proposals are quite commons.

 

[GardenRail]

Amazing isn't it. I was in the Republic of Georgia last year. Had at least 4G in some of the most remote places, valleys, mountains, high altitude plateaus. Got the train from Tbilisi to Batumi, with full WiFi all the way. For what would be considered a backward country by most, it certainly made this country look poor. East Midlands Railway as a comparison, both wifi and mobile signal.

 

[rf_ioliver]

Proposals involving the use of GSM-R are thankfully very uncommon, haha. The issues involved in co-locating 4 or 5G equipment with GSM-R on the other hand shouldn't be understated, as those proposals are quite commons.

Finland doesn't use GSM-R ... the amount of interference from BTS' broadcasting on bands either side of the GSM-R allocated spectrum requires some serious filtering. Coupled with (especially) older locomotives acting like a large antenna makes it impractical. FRMCS is under active development/deployment anyway and LTE-R is, well, we don't talk about LTE-R

On the other hand, 4G and 5G is available throughout the country.

 

[_toommm_]

Amazing isn't it. I was in the Republic of Georgia last year. Had at least 4G in some of the most remote places, valleys, mountains, high altitude plateaus. Got the train from Tbilisi to Batumi, with full WiFi all the way. For what would be considered a backward country by most, it certainly made this country look poor. East Midlands Railway as a comparison, both wifi and mobile signal.

It’s probably just such a normal thing in mainland Europe. I have unlimited data in the UK so I tend to download before I board, but I only have 25GB roaming per month which is barely anything to me. I really wasn’t expecting much from the wifi, but to be greeted by unlimited wifi in the portal and no restrictions was such a nice surprise.

 

[Skie]

Merseyrail is the first implementation of a proper shoreside train connectivity system in the UK. Merseytravel paid to have a lot of fibre installed across the network and towers installed to uplink with the new class 777s. Network rail now own and maintain the fibre network, with the Liverpool City Region still owning some of the pairs to provide them with a nice backbone network.

Much more detail here: https://www.railengineer.co.uk/new-merseyrail-connected-trains/?amp

 

[hacman]

Having worked designing, installing and maintaining these systems both here in the UK and abroad, I can confirm that the issue tends to be cost.

In most areas, the bandwidth provided by the various cellular providers is ample; especially when balanced across multiple providers, and with the improvement in reception that a roof mounted antenna and other hardware provides. In some areas there will always be poorer signal, but the number of true "not-spots" on the UK rail network isn't as great as it once was.

The UK loading guage doesn't impact the installation of antennas at all - the size of the antennas is so small that it has no bearing on the trains kinematic envelope at all.

The issue comes from the fact that cellular networks charge a large amount of money for data still, especially on business contracts, and when you consider the amount of data that providing WiFi to a train load of people consumes it gets expensive VERY fast (unlimited data contracts rarely exist for this sort of application). You then have to consider the equipment that is used, as on-train routers, access points and switches are often more expensive due to the certification process they must go through. This hardware all then needs to be wired up and installed, which also costs money. There is also a substantial "on-shore" infrastructure required too, even if you don't use track-side networks.

Ultimately when most franchises/concessions now state that operators can't charge for WiFi, it becomes a very substantial cost centre that is second to actually providing a service that goes from A to B.

Various companies (including the one I worked for) have in the past used WiMAX and looked at other line-side radio technologies to provide backbone capacity, and conversations from a technical perspective have been quite advanced - but the point at which it stalls time and time again is working out who is going to pay for it, or when said organisation sees the price tag.

With the way the railway is managed in the UK, I wouldn't expect this situation to improve any time soon. Money is limited and train WiFi is quite far down the list of priorities.