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WiFi Train

I like the idea of this a lot more than the practice!!!!

GNER have equipped more of their trains with WiFi Internet access. As a regular traveler on GNER between West Yorkshire and 'that London' I finally got around to giving it a go.





The free trial ran until the end of January so now access is free in First class (not that I'd be able to test that - though I am intrigued as to whether I can sneak onto the freebie by sitting in the 1st standard carriage) and in the First Class lounge at Kings Cross.

If however you work for living you have to pay:

£2.95 - 30 minutes
£4.95 - 1 hour (60 minutes)
£7.95 - 2 hours (120 minutes)
£9.95 - 3 hours (180 minutes )


So what’s it like? Well true to form it not quite as simple as it should be, at least on my XP enabled laptop. "Most Wi-Fi enabled laptops automatically detect the wireless network" boasts the GNER - well yes, my lap top did detect the network, it just couldn't access it - that pesky 'Out of Range' bug! Though it is simple enough to sort it out by opening your control panel and manually adding the network using the network id 'train'. I conducted my test during the freebie period so I'm not sure how the payment process works, all I had to do was open a browser window and bung in an offer code at the GNER network home page (which loads automatically). Server round trips are very slow however and so I'd guess it’s all a bit painful.


And that’s the service in a nutshell really - dog slow. I saw precious few other commuters taking advantage of the connection so I’m sure its not a contention issue. I gave up waiting for Outlook Web Access to download its bits and pieces - Gmail offering a much more comfortable service with its RIA alike client side processing being idea for such a connection. IM was a bit flaky but usable and I didn't even attempt Skype. Web surfing was tough, like going back to a very slow modem speeds - this may be WiFI but it sure isn’t broadband. So no flicking idly through the web, looking at online photos or streaming media.

I'm being unfair - what we've got is a constant Internet presence on the move. More reliable than using a cell phone as a modem. And settling into the use of bloglines to catch up on my RSS subscriptions was quite comfortable and a perfectly viable was of consuming Internet content.

The train gets it’s Internet by flipping between satellite and cell phone technology to maintain a constant connection. GNER acknowledge that the speed will vary depending upon cell coverage and trackside furniture, but I haven’t found and claims as to what speeds you can reasonably hope for.

A more detailed description of the workings can be found here.


GNER should be saluted for their efforts - not just for offering Internet access but also for being very sensible and providing power sockets for your equipment.



So, this is not quite the utopian ubiquitous access dream, but it’s a worthy start. If there is an email that desperately needs to go off then this service could be very useful, though if you're trying to send a lengthy presentation ahead of the meeting you're traveling to attend, the train itself is probably a faster transport medium – to paraphrase “Never under-estimate the bandwidth of a laptop on a train”

I can't say that given my experience I'm in a rush to pay habitually every journey, but I'll have a crack every now and then to see if performance has improved. Bloglines and Gmail mean that I can reasonably get some useful work done on the commute, but the higher bandwidth requirements of my usual entertainment or even distraction consumption are unfortunately out of reach.

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