if not all trains and buses have done this, presumably the cost or other complexity is non-trivial. So how expensive and/or complex is it nowadays?
Implementation is Childs play, mounting a 3G hotspur in a bus is easy. Bandwidth for wireless providers is what gets pricey.
many mobile plans for individuals provide some bandwidth for $60 a month or thereabouts. Perhaps the organization that operates the bus/train should get such a dirt-cheap plan and then use a technical solution to ration the bandwidth to WiFi users? After all even a sucky dial-up type of connection barely good enough for accessing text only sites (perhaps specifically mobile sites, even if they would be accessed on the laptop) after compression is still better than no connection at all?
Problem is you will be on a commercial plan which is rarely very friendly in pricing. Kinda hard to do a bus fleet and have the guys at verizon not figure it out that you are trying to sneak in a home user plan. Also your bandwidth it getting tapped by as many as a dozen users and even if they are each throttled to say 25kbs, 10 steady users 10-12 hours a day adds up fast.
There are routers that can use a USB wireless device as an Internet source and the project is pretty straightforward for a competent iT firm, but bandwidth is gonna kill you no matter what. I would bet you are looking at $200-300/mo per bus or train car.
drachillix, do they discriminate against commercial users regardless of bandwidth use? Or do they have a steep non-linear cost function for marginal extra bandwidth beyond what is given to individuals for a low price?
For surface vehicles, you’re right. Getting a wireless signal in a subway presents a technical issue.
The OP presumes that the reason every mass transit system hasn’t provided wifi is an issue of cost or technology. I think it’s more of an issue of limited demand, and limited benefit to the transit companies. Unless you can show it would increase ridership, why would you do it?
In practical terms, the cost would be zero. The way that many public sources provide free wifi is to partner with a content provider who provides the service in exchange for advertising.
The CTA has outfitted the subway tunnels in Chicago with wireless equipment, for both voice and data. IME, the reception is very spotty, and the data signal, when you can get it at all, is very slow.
They’re rolling this out in NYC too. Consider me dubious.
I wanted to jump back to mention that there are major cities that provide free wifi in their downtown areas. Houston, Seattle, Denver, Raleigh… I’m sure there are others.
Megabus, which operates in the northeast and midwest, has free wifi on their buses. Amtrak and Greyhound offer it on some of their fleets, too. I still say it’s on issue of demand rather than a cost/technology barrier.
Chicago was planning this, but scrapped the project several years ago.
For those sorts of (non-commuter) carriers, I think it represents a competitive advantage over other long-distance travel options, and adding a couple of dollars to the cost of a ticket in order to cover it is likely unnoticed by most of their riders.
For public transit, OTOH, while it does represent a competitive advantage, I don’t think it’d be enough of an incentive to move a significant number riders to public transit over other travel options, given the more limited length of time you’re on a city bus or train (less than an hour in most cases, compared to multi-hour trips on Megabus or Amtrak). And, with the relatively small per-ride fare which most public-transit riders pay, even a small surcharge for wifi would be noticeable.
Generally speaking businesses pay more for alot of things because the assumption is, we do it because it will (or we think it will) make us more money.
Businesses also have a greater need for consistency.
Perhaps we somebody with the guts, or money, to ‘‘build it and they will come’’. The trouble most of the public transportation is owned by impoverished cities and mostly used by people that don’t own a laptop. I think part of the reason public transportation has never caught on is the people want something to do, so they drive. But driving is becoming more of a hassle and more expensive and a distraction from texting and other important activities. The cell phone uses don’t need Wi Fi. But it could be a factor in a renewed campaign to get people out of their cars.
My son has taken both Megabus and Amtrak back and forth between Chicago and St. Louis many times, and tells me the reception is very poor and the speed is so slow that it makes pretty much anything other than a static webpage unusable.
If you’ve ever ridden a train you know that pretty much every track in America has telephone poles and/or power lines running alongside it, so there’s no insurmountable problem with getting a signal to the train. Of course, getting a strong, consistent signal across all 300 miles of track/road between St. Louis and Chicago might be a different thing altogether.
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How in the world does having telephone poles and/or power lines enhance wireless connectivity and/or cellular connectivity? Will putting keys on bare earth make a house appear?
The ICE trains in Germany offer wifi through Tmobil on certain routes. Free for some first class areas and a pay per use or subscription basis for other users. Pricing ws 5 euro for one hour, or there was a monthly option. Service was adequate, though only available for half of my route. The one hour option seemed odd instead of a one day use like Boingo, but actually I think I like the concept as I finished what I needed access for with almost 40 minutes left that I can use some other day when I am on the train.
An interesting concept, but I have never noticed many users. The accessory I have seen used the most frequently is the AC power point available at each seat in a lot of cars. People plugging in laptops, or charging phones and other portable devices. A handy feature as I can watch a movie or do work on the way to the airport and still have a full charge on the laptop when I arrive.
A wire running parallel to the track can be transmitting/receiving a radio (i.e. wireless) signal, as well as carrying power or voice communication signal. It’s a relatively trivial (technologically) issue to combine the signals and use the existing wire as a “hundred mile long” antenna. I’ve used the power lines in my house for a shortwave receiving antenna, with just a few cheap components to connect to them.
Google and Apple run a free bus system for their employees, that has wi-fi on the buses.
http://www.californiastreets.org/2011/03/transportationcamp-the-role-of-employee-shuttles/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html
Of course, when you figure out what a Google engineer costs per hour, then providing free wi-fi on the bus is a no brainer, plus Google can make sure the system is secure. If occurs to me, that if I could just use commuting time to catch up on email it would be an big advantage.