New GWR wifi limits?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

A new day - and with yesterday's noise settled and an exchange of messages behind the scenes, I'm re-opening the thread.  WiFi on trains - something that was unthinkable to have at all ten years ago - is now so important to us that it sparks strong views and discussions.

I travel on a wide variety of trains - some with and some without WiFi,  with my most commonly used service having a mixture of fitted and unfitted trains.   The class 158 and 150/2 units that have it fitted seem to be a different setup to the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) service, and thus far connectivity when available at all has been good for what I need.  With some 153s staying longer than originally intended, we'll see if they get WiFi fitted, painted green ...

As a part of my main work, I carry a MyFi device and these days that's battery/USB operated (my first one was mains only) so that I can be online most of the time even if I'm on a train without accessible WiFi; that leaves the on-train service as more a convenience than a necessity.  But I'll still connect for the "bigger stuff" when changing trains at WiFi fitted stations.

[TonyK]

I wonder what sort of price the satellite would work out at?

I know someone who has just returned from a cruise and was paying between £7 and £20 per 24 hours depending on what sort of access you wanted - basic internet messaging and social media, no email - email, web browsing or top of the range video streaming and calling.

I too know people recently returned from a cruise (Mrs FT, N! and myself), and we rather balked at the $0.75 per minute cost of PAYG^▸ (Pay as you go) access. We were told by others that this was payable even for the frustratingly slow login process. Access was available at a daily rate as described by bobm, but only for the whole period of the cruise, not odd days. So we figured that if a couple of postcards home from Punta Arenas was good enough for Ferdinand Magellan when he was on the same cruise*, it would do for us too. We spent the money on drink onshore in bars with WiFi - half an hour after an exciting day's exploration before reboarding was enough to keep in touch, and the excuse for a crafty local cerveza was useful.

If the same sort of prices were applied to train-borne satellite internet access, the cost would be more than that of the actual train journey. Some would pay that without a second thought, particularly if the employer is ultimately footing the bill. Most wouldn't. We could have a two-tier system with premium rates for satellite and free / nominal cost for 4G access, but I don't think that would be workable.

On the electric railway, it is at least theoretically possible to transmit data at high speed through power lines. It works with National Grid, although that doesn't move much. That could be an area for research, but it won't make the trains go any faster or make money so probably won't happen quickly if at all. We are left with what is essentially a gimmick which works occasionally, and the knowledge that if you want a dependable signal, you must provide your own kit.

*If my memory of my history lessons serves me right, Ferdinand booked the cruise when he heard that there was a strait to the south of Chile and Argentina which had the same name as him, and he was fascinated to see it. Similarly, centuries later, I went to see the tiny Irish village that bears my surname. Fancy that - a village called Now!.

[rogerpatenall]

"We spent the money on drink onshore in bars with WiFi - half an hour after an exciting day's exploration before reboarding was enough to keep in touch, and the excuse for a crafty local cerveza was useful."

I remember seeing a programme about a Royal Navy ship a couple of years ago, and the Met Officer took her laptop onshore in the West Indies to get all the weather updates as she got a better signal at the local MacDonalds, than the wizardry of the RN could provide.

[t0m]

Thanks all for the ..umm discussion.

Given I spent over 3 hours per day on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), I travel with multiple connected devices..w/ coverage on O2, Vodafone and EE. They're all a million miles better than the train, but all have the best performance in different parts of my route.

My earlier point was really that it seems rather short-sighted to invest in and make such a song and dance about the arrival a capability that basically doesn't work!  During beta testing GWR consistently said it was slow because they were testing and it would be faster on launch. Of course, it never was. Even in areas of strong coverage, the service is poor. I appreciate GWR are at the whim of network capacity but they would have known this, and presumably tested, prior to roll out.

Back to the original topic..even with the new limits imposed it still seems fairly unusable. Ho hum. I'll go back to my myriad of devices!

[TonyK]

Back to the original topic..even with the new limits imposed it still seems fairly unusable. Ho hum. I'll go back to my myriad of devices!

Which is very sensible.

[Timmer]

I've found the wifi on 158's to be far better than on GW^▸ (Great Western) HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), fine on VT^▸ (Virgin Trains - former franchises) East coast HSTs/91s. I don't even bother now regardless of how quiet or busy the carriage is on an HST the wifi just does not work for me. Just rely on 4G.

[grahame]

"We spent the money on drink onshore in bars with WiFi - half an hour after an exciting day's exploration before reboarding was enough to keep in touch, and the excuse for a crafty local cerveza was useful."

I remember seeing a programme about a Royal Navy ship a couple of years ago, and the Met Officer took her laptop onshore in the West Indies to get all the weather updates as she got a better signal at the local MacDonalds, than the wizardry of the RN could provide.

I have been on four cruises over the years.

The first - around the year 2000 - was the first Geek cruise - the "Perl Whirl" - and we all rushed to the internet cafes in he ports we called at to stay in touch.

The second was a later Geek cruise and WiFi was specially fitted for participants in one of the ships bars, where we all congregated to connect (rather than to drink) much to the disgust of the bar staff

The third we bought a WiFi package and connected for a few minutes to grab email or look something up, but prepared reposes off line rather than a $silly per minute

And on the fourth and final cruise we were permanently connected, even is the connection was hideously slow especially after port stops when everyone was sending pictures home.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Some numbers for download speeds (in Mbps) that I've recorded using speedtest.net over recent months:

	Train WiFi	Mobile
HST▸ (High Speed Train)	0.12	27
Class 180	0.5	2-15
Class 180	0.3-0.9
Class 180	0.9
Class 166	0.36	20
Class 150	Failed	10-20	Bristol - Worcester

Most of this is on Worcester - London journeys. The mobile signal varies a lot (inevitably), but is always much better than the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) WiFi. So much so that I rarely bother to record the numbers nowadays. I'll try to be more consistent about this over the next few weeks.

[TaplowGreen]

.......possibly the most First World of First World problems......personally it comes as something of a relief when there's no Internet access, it means people actually talk to each other.....or even open a book.....remember them? 

[Rhydgaled]

Interestingly, I found that out by accident on Saturday (04 March 2017) when I couldn't log on during my (3 hour journey home to the far Southwest

I suspect that's the system running out of dynamic IP addresses rather than the limit.

Couldn't they use the 10.x.x.x network? You would never fit that number of passengers on a train. Even if you used subnets within that range, so 10.1.1.x for coach A, 10.1.2.x for coach B etc. they would still have around 250 devices per coach.

It is a mean allowance in STD, but I suspect the number of available DNS^▸ (Domain name service) connections per HST^▸ (High Speed Train) are over subscribed, certainly in the peaks. Each router has a max of 256 connections ( I think), so unless there are multiple routers, say one for each pair of coaches), this wiukd be a way of sharing reasonBly the available bandwidth. I guess they're hoping pax give up once down on the slower speeds.

Oh, I didn't think of technical limitations of the router; I don't know how the router differentiates traffic from each device but if each one is on a slightly different frequency I suppose that could be a hard limit.

[t0m]

.......possibly the most First World of First World problems......personally it comes as something of a relief when there's no Internet access, it means people actually talk to each other.....or even open a book.....remember them? 

Hardly first world! Connectivity is significantly better in India than on a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) train.

Travelling on the Hurtigruten ship off the north coast of Norway - far north of the arctic circle and while at sea I had a full 4.5G signal on my phone. Got significantly faster downloads than I get in central London. We've a lot to learn in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)!

Oh, and books..what are they?

[1st fan]

Thanks all for the ..umm discussion.

Given I spent over 3 hours per day on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), I travel with multiple connected devices..w/ coverage on O2, Vodafone and EE. They're all a million miles better than the train, but all have the best performance in different parts of my route.

My earlier point was really that it seems rather short-sighted to invest in and make such a song and dance about the arrival a capability that basically doesn't work!  During beta testing GWR consistently said it was slow because they were testing and it would be faster on launch. Of course, it never was. Even in areas of strong coverage, the service is poor. I appreciate GWR are at the whim of network capacity but they would have known this, and presumably tested, prior to roll out. Bifuiu

Back to the original topic..even with the new limits imposed it still seems fairly unusable. Ho hum. I'll go back to my myriad of devices!

I normally just use wifi to check if we're going to arrive on time or if there's a delay. I told the person waiting around for me at MIM that the train - despite what the display was saying at the station - was going to be late.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Does that mean that the mobile signal at MIM has improved? In single-track days you'd often find your train waiting there "for another train to clear the single track section" - but the station was completely dead as far as the mobile signal was concerned, so you couldn't tell whoever was collecting you.

[1st fan]

Does that mean that the mobile signal at MIM has improved? In single-track days you'd often find your train waiting there "for another train to clear the single track section" - but the station was completely dead as far as the mobile signal was concerned, so you couldn't tell whoever was collecting you.

Must be signal in the car park as that's where she was waiting.

[TonyK]

The first - around the year 2000 - was the first Geek cruise - the "Perl Whirl" - and we all rushed to the internet cafes in he ports we called at to stay in touch.

The second was a later Geek cruise and WiFi was specially fitted for participants in one of the ships bars, where we all congregated to connect (rather than to drink) much to the disgust of the bar staff

I was about to say that I am going on the same cruise in October, but mine will be Greek, as in islands. Whether or not I get Wifi is of no concern. I can manage a week incommunicado.