Thursday, December 02, 2004

 

WiFi on Commuter Trains? Wi-Not

Here in Connecticut, Interstate 95 is so crowded that nobody goes there anymore. Suppose you could get 1% of the cars off the road by making train travel more productive? Betcha a lot of today's drivers would opt for the train if trains had WiFi.

This article in the Gotham Gazette reports that Swedish employees are so productive on WiFi trains that they're starting to think of train time as part of the paid work day:
Sorting through a plethora of new emails on the way to work, accessing the company intranet, or using new Internet-based technologies to make discounted international phone calls, all heighten productivity - so much so that in Sweden, a group has begun advocating for employers to consider commuter rail time as work hours, since employees conduct such a large amount of work during their ride.
Is this likely to happen? No way, not on Connecticut's trains. Not until they fix the heat, the air conditioning, the bathrooms and the mechanical breakdowns, anyway. But I can tell you this: if I had an independent franchise, I'd sell monthly WiFi passes and I'd be making money in Year 2, no doubt about it. And I'd be taking cars off the road. And I'd be making the U.S. work force more competitive in the world marketplace.

Woah. Making too much sense. Never happen. After all, we've got countries to invade, innocents to bomb, Chinese imports to consume, an atmosphere to pollute. Honk, honk, outa my way, a55hole.
Thanks to Jock Gill and David Parish for the link.

Comments:
Hi,

I happened upon a company who have trials on trains using something called BPL (broadband over powerline). using patented technology, they get the WiFi signal onto any electric train through the electricity wires making a WiFi hotspot on a train. It looks promising as it will be an always on connection and they are rumoured to be using chipsets in excess of 230Mb/s !!!

No more slow sattelite Wifi on trains !!

Company is based in SF, USA and are called IP Everywhere Inc.

Check them out - http://www.ip-everywhere.com
 
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