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More WiFi on More Trains ...
(15 Jun 2009, BWCS Staff)Wrexham & Shropshire railway has become the latest UK train operator to start offering free WiFi services to all passengers. The new service, installed and operated by Icomera, will be available on all trains running between Central London and the Midlands. Icomera announced at last week's Train Communications Systems Conference, hosted by BWCS, that it will install its Moovbox M200R mobile broadband gateways to provide Internet connectivity to passenger carriages. At the same time, the company will provision power outlets for laptops, netbooks, phones and other devices.
The Icomera Moovbox will connect the trains to the Internet using multiple next-generation 3G HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) connections from Vodafone and Orange, at speeds of up to several megabits per second. The MoovBox M200R is capable of simultaneous connections to two different mobile broadband providers giving aggregate bandwidth to customers on the train from both networks. Customers can connect to the MoovBox gateways over a standard WiFi connection.
According to Andy Hamilton, Managing Director of Wrexham and Shropshire railway, "Free internet access is an extremely attractive option for both business and leisure travelers and Icomera has helped us to upgrade our fleet cost-effectively with the very latest in communications technology." Wrexham and Shropshire is a joint venture between Renaissance Trains and Laing Rail, itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn. It runs direct trains from Wrexham, Shrewsbury and Telford to London Marylebone station.
Peter Kingsland, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Icomera commented "Free on-board WiFi is rapidly becoming expected by today's tech-savvy travelers, but the challenges of delivering a persistent connection are significant. On the Wrexham & Shropshire trains, SureWAN invisibly manages the Vodafone and Orange 3G HSPA cellular links so that should one go down due to network coverage issues, the other link elegantly steps in without interruption. Our technology has been successfully deployed by large operators such as National Express in the UK, SJ in Sweden and Arriva in Denmark."
Icomera recently reported that in the twelve months to October 2008 it recorded over 3.7 million passenger sessions on its various on-board internet services, running on trains and buses in the UK, Europe and the US. This marked a 272% increase on the year before. According to the company it is on course for a similar increase this year.
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