Amtrak Wi-Fi (WiFi) Availability

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:52 am Would Starlink work?

Starlink requires a dish and a fixed-on-ground point. It gets complicated real quick on a train consist in motion.

Starlink to cellular to wifi? It may be more complicated than just running more fiber along the rail lines.

And if Amtrak is still using LTE networks while everyone is expecting 5G network not that I know what network they are using and Starlink through the tubes in New York, Baltimore, and Boston probably won't work well. The next question I have is on networks who is used as the carrier and is there enough towers and or bandwidth to handle the few minutes a train passes through it plus however many passengers use that network on their personal devices and the general public in the area around the tower?

I never realized that the Wifi module is in the cafe car, which explains a lot. I was in one of the 1+2 business class cars with a cafe car, and I was surprised that it was an actual usable experience! I'm not trying to do any streaming or really anything extreme, just regular browsing, and it worked great. Other trips in other cars have yielded very poor results, pretty much making it unusable.

FWIW, when I was in the UK and took LNER service on the newish Hitachi Azuma trains, and the Wifi was equally as bad as Amtrak.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:04 am The issue here is two fold:

• The wifi is only as good as the cellular service in the particular area.

Given the prolific PTC installation, it seems there would be antennae and communications cables along most passenger mains. It's too bad they didn't strike a deal to install gear that would allow trains to have better cell service at the same time. At least on the big corriders like NEC, Carolina, Detroit, Saint Louis, Cascade, and San Diegan.

It is not a good idea to mix vital communications such as PTC with non-essential services such as passenger wi-fi.

Amtrak tried to have a dedicated ROW radio system for onboard internet. its still got the towers up. it goes from claymont DE to newark DE. it doesnt work anymore, but it was much better idea. And yes, the internet works better in the cafe car, right from the modem to you.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 11:56 am

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:52 am Would Starlink work?

Starlink requires a dish and a fixed-on-ground point. It gets complicated real quick on a train consist in motion.

Starlink to cellular to wifi? It may be more complicated than just running more fiber along the rail lines.

Starlink supports airplane service, so other than tunnels and weird structures, it should be feasible... and those can probably be supplemented by cellular (though slower)

https://www.starlink.com/business/aviation

My former employer supplied the network management gear to VR (Finland's state railways) for everything but PTC in their passenger trains in 2022 (this was an upgrade to existing capacity project). The upgrade we provided was the use of three Cellular modems per car (each keyed to a specific Cellular provider) coupled with WiFi between cars to provide a "seamless" network that transparently handled weak/non-existent service from one of the providers. If it came down to that, one of those modems could easily have been a Starlink modem, but in this case, they weren't.

AlexC wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 11:25 pm Starlink supports airplane service, so other than tunnels and weird structures, it should be feasible... and those can probably be supplemented by cellular (though slower)

https://www.starlink.com/business/aviation

Okay, in that case, I can see a celluar/wifi mesh in each car and Starlink in the cafe.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 11:42 am Okay, in that case, I can see a celluar/wifi mesh in each car and Starlink in the cafe.

Don't people realize that in a metal skin passenger car that you are in a Farraday cage, where radio waves cannot penetrate. You have to have an antenna outside the car, usually on the roof, and a cable into the car to a receiver/modem/wifi transmitter. That's is why old club cars with radios back in the days had a radio antenna on its roof. Back then, just for receiving AM radio broadcasts in the club car. That is also why wifi is best in the cafe/club cars today. Riders today could care less about radio.
If you want great wifi everywhere, you will need an antenna on every roof with its own wifi modem, or run cat 5 cables between every rail rail car with wifi modems as well. How much more do you want to pay for your fare tickets to ride the train. Electronics and their maintenance issues cost money.
Are we the taxpayers funding intercity train transportation or communications?

The passengers who complain the loudest about not being able to do Zoom calls or watch movies in 4K are generally people who can easily afford (and probably already have) an unlimited data plan from their own wireless provider and/or their employer can afford to set them up with a mobile hotspot for work-related data needs.

I think it's a no-brainer for Amtrak to offer free wifi, and they should make whatever improvements are necessary in order for it to be fast enough and reliable enough for passengers' basic needs. How do I define "basic?" Browsing the web, sending/receiving messages, using mobile apps that aren't data hogs, and watching videos at 480p resolution. That's enough to keep the vast majority of passengers busy and entertained. Passengers who need or want more than that can pay for it through their (or their employers') wireless providers.

My employer provides all of the above but the antennae in a handheld phone does not do as good of a job as a large antennae that can be spread out in a 85' long passenger car.

Besides if this were the case, we wouldn't have buildings with wifi, just a bunch of people on their data plan. But we all know that's not the case.

How much of an increase in ticket prices are you willing to accept for an improved Amtrak wifi system that supports video conferencing and 4K video? Alternatively, how much are you willing to pay for Amtrak wifi that isn't free? (For the sake of argument, let's say they charge for it in 4-hour blocks.)

Okay, sake of argument. Southwest charged $9 last time I flew there for a wifi day pass, although in-flight entertainment through your device was free.

An Amfleet 1 is 84 seats. Multiply that by 8 for the Pennsylvanian on average, and sell it out. That's 672 people heading to Pittsburgh for a particular convention... and they all pony up. That's $6048 for Wifi service on one trip alone. (yes, this is best case)

AT&T sells cellular hotspots for $80 to $460 on top of the service. The hardware isn't that expensive and can be put into each car. The Starlink system looks like north of $600. Plus, wifi "mesh" networks is well established (see eero mesh routers). If you can hit a wifi router in one car from the far side of an attached car, you can do a wifi mesh.

Give it a few very popular conventions (and I'm not just talking the ones in my circles) and Amtrak can easily cover the costs of installing the hardware and covering service costs.

The only real issue is cellular coverage and/or tunnels.

The equipment is more like around $25K per car as these systems have ruggedization (vibration, air quality, temperature, mounting) requirements that do mean the hobbyist or consumer grade equipment can't be used since equipment built to those specifications would be needing constant replacement.

For example the Klas TRX R6 is considered competitively priced for the rail market with a list price of $23K.