On train wifi with different Train Operating Companies (TOCs)

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Perhaps they should actually attach a fibre optic cable to the back of the boat!

After all, Brunel's SS Gert Eastern was able to lay nearly 2400 nautical miles of cable in one go. A modern ship could do much better.

Attach the landward end to a big motor and reel, and on the outward journey pay out the cable, and for the return fire up the motor and pull the ship back. A few capstans at strategic points... Grand Banks, Azores, Straits of Gibraltar... That'll work surely.

I'm off to the Patent Office. Then the Dragon's Den.

bignosemac. aka W. Heath Robinson.

[TonyK]

Wincingly high access price here ... but then you divide the package total by the number of us sharing it (2) and the number of days, and it looks sensibler.

Is sensibler a word?

[grahame]

Wincingly high access price here ... but then you divide the package total by the number of us sharing it (2) and the number of days, and it looks sensibler.

Is sensibler a word?

I'm forward looking.  It wasn't but it is now - and its how I would like transport services to move forward!

[stuving]

SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)'s on-board WiFi provision has been rather limited so far - only some TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse), and then mostly not free. In February this year they promised free WiFi on all TGVs by the end of 2016. This was part of a "digitalisation strategy" for the whole business, a bit like Network Rail's NFTx.

Then yesterday, in a TV interview, the boss Guillaume Pepy revised that promise to free WiFi in all trains by the same date - end of next year. He did say it won't have unlimited capacity, which is obvious enough, though I expect it will be more limited even than his example (you won't all be able to download films everywhere) suggested. It's being done through a partnership with Orange and SFR, who will put extra base stations along routes - and that will give far more 4G (and 3G) coverage on trains too.

I know the French love their grands projets, but 18 months to do every train - at an estimated cost of 360,000 Euros per train - that will be impressive, if they manage it.

[TaplowGreen]

I know the French love their grands projets, but 18 months to do every train - at an estimated cost of 360,000 Euros per train - that will be impressive, if they manage it.

...........that sounds like a Network Rail project!!!

[Worcester_Passenger]

I travelled from Paddington back to Worcester yesterday, and tried using speedtest.net to measure the performance of the on-train wifi in a class 180. Averaged out at 0.5Mb/s download speed, with not much variation - fastest 0.58 and slowest 0.46,

Between Moreton and Honeybourne, I tried tethering to my mobile as a comparison. This averaged at 8.6 Mb/s, with a huge variation between 2.5 and 15.1.

But that's much better than my two previous journeys, on an SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) from Bordeaux to Lille, and on a Eurostar from there to London. Neither of which offered wifi.

[BerkshireBugsy]

I travelled from Paddington back to Worcester yesterday, and tried using speedtest.net to measure the performance of the on-train wifi in a class 180. Averaged out at 0.5Mb/s download speed, with not much variation - fastest 0.58 and slowest 0.46,

Between Moreton and Honeybourne, I tried tethering to my mobile as a comparison. This averaged at 8.6 Mb/s, with a huge variation between 2.5 and 15.1.

But that's much better than my two previous journeys, on an SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) from Bordeaux to Lille, and on a Eurostar from there to London. Neither of which offered wifi.

Interesting results-thank you. Technically the big difference between your tethered phone and the on board wi-fi is that you were the only one using your mobile for data. Is your phone 4G (is the onboard wifi reliant on 3G?)

As far as I know - but may be wrong    the whole train (5 cars in the case of the 180) share a single mobile connection rather than each car having it's own.

I am making the assumption that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) services make use of the mobile cellular providers - does anyone know if this is correct?

xxx

[ChrisB]

that is correct - how all UK^▸ (United Kingdom) ontrain wifi works. Some TOCS fit multiple routers.

I think Chiltern are the only ones working towards 4G at the moment

[stuving]

As far as I know - but may be wrong    the whole train (5 cars in the case of the 180) share a single mobile connection rather than each car having it's own.

That's not really how 3G and 4G work. GSM (2G) did have one voice channel per phone, but for data use you could be allocated more than one. From 3G onwards, the capacity of each (much wider) frequency channel is divided up into packets and allocated according between mobiles to demand. A non-standard user like a train's on-board router could be allocated a non-standard amount of access, depending on a large number of things. There's the hardware capability of each router, and the agreement between the various parties - perhaps more than just the ToC and the network owner, e.g. with a third party between then and join management of the network (RAN - radio access network) between companies. And there's a lot of technical issues, such as how internet access follows fast-moving mobiles between cells.

I have no idea what might be in that access agreement, but I doubt it would be very generous (i.e. that a ToC would pay for that). And in any case, how equal are network customers anyway?

[ChrisB]

You refer to bandwidth available to each router there.

I think the OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter) refers to connections, of which each router has a finite number. That finite number then share the bandwidth that you refer to. Each connection to each router shares that bandwidth assigned to each router.

A router in each coach will have fewer connections to share each amount of bandwidth & thus get a 'better#' connection.

[BerkshireBugsy]

As far as I know - but may be wrong    the whole train (5 cars in the case of the 180) share a single mobile connection rather than each car having it's own.

That's not really how 3G and 4G work. GSM (2G) did have one voice channel per phone, but for data use you could be allocated more than one. From 3G onwards, the capacity of each (much wider) frequency channel is divided up into packets and allocated according between mobiles to demand. A non-standard user like a train's on-board router could be allocated a non-standard amount of access, depending on a large number of things. There's the hardware capability of each router, and the agreement between the various parties - perhaps more than just the ToC and the network owner, e.g. with a third party between then and join management of the network (RAN - radio access network) between companies. And there's a lot of technical issues, such as how internet access follows fast-moving mobiles between cells.

I have no idea what might be in that access agreement, but I doubt it would be very generous (i.e. that a ToC would pay for that). And in any case, how equal are network customers anyway?

Yes, Chris - I guess my explanation was simplistic. But surely there is still the issue that with a tethered mobile it is for the users exclusive use whilst when using the train Wi-fi you are - as indeed you say - sharing the multiplex with other users?

BB

[ChrisB]

correct

[patch38]

But that's much better than my two previous journeys, on an SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) from Bordeaux to Lille, and on a Eurostar from there to London. Neither of which offered wifi.

Wifi is now available on the new Eurostar rolling stock. I wasn't overly impressed with its performance a couple of weeks ago but didn't try running any speed tests. I reverted to using 4G tethering on my phone.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Yes, my phone is 4G.

And I was on an old Eurostar.

Part of my interest in the speeds is that I've stayed in several hotels of late where the wifi is dreadfully slow. Probably a few years ago, I'd've thought "oh good, wifi" whereas now it's pretty painful.

[chrisr_75]

I suspect the spread of 4G mobile internet will eventually lead to the death of widely available public Wi-Fi in 'open' spaces, obvious exceptions being places like the London Underground. After using 4G for over 2 years now, I'm still astonished at the download/upload speeds on offer.