And where did the
BBC» get it from? Probably
this, from Railway News:
Peninsula Transport Debuts Superfast Wi-Fi Pilot at Paddington
Author: Joey Stoate Published: 17 Nov 2025
The UK▸ has debuted its very-first train to utilise pilot ‘next generation’ Wi-Fi technology.
GWR▸ ’s Intercity Express Train, which was developed by Peninsula Transport in partnership with Motion Applied, Great Western Railway (GWR), Network Rail, and Hitachi, made its debut alongside a Formula 1 car today (17 November 2025) at London Paddington Station.
Using a new, hybrid system that aggregates signals from both ground-based cellular masts and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites; the pilot hopes to provide superfast, reliable speeds without the need to invest in trackside infrastructure, enabling the rollout of the technology across the UK’s rail network.
The introduction of the train comes following an announcement made by the Department for Transport (DfT» ) in June that pledged to eliminate mobile signal blackspots in tunnels along a number of rail routes across the country – including the 4-kilometre-long Chipping Sodbury tunnel near Bristol.
As part of the deal, mobile network operators have also pledged to invest in a slew of new 4G/5G infrastructure at both Bristol Temple Meads and London Paddington Station. The DfT has since secured an additional 41 million GBP as part of the 2025 Spending Review to introduce low-earth-orbit satellite connectivity on all mainline trains, which aims to improve the availability and connection speeds for Wi-Fi by 2030.
Both say that this £41M was allocated in the Spending Review, which it wasn't. It's part of the New Industrial Strategy of a couple of weeks later. No doubt in the Treasury's towering hierarchy of numbers it's part of something in the Spending Review, but not obviously.
Like most things these days it may well be clever, but its cleverness is so oversold it's hard to tell. Looked at one way it's a step on from Icomera's system of combining all the mobile phone signals a train can get hold of to make a reasonably continuous backhaul for WiFi. This time they add in other radiocomms services to reduce the number of total blackouts along the route.
From another direction these guys worked in F1 for teams with a lot to spend on radiocomms kit that's small, light, sets up quickly to work anywhere in the world, etc. That has given them a product that has advantages in a train.
What no-one's letting on is whose LEO satellites they will use! Maybe they have tried to be independent and hope to sign up to whatever they can at the time (though we all know most of the satellite's are Elon's).
