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New Kit Boosts Amtrak On-Board WiFi as Track Trial Expands

(21 Nov 2016, BWCS Staff)

As many Americans prepare to travel home for Thanksgiving (and try not to mention the election over the dinner table) national train company Amtrak has again been working hard on upgrading its on-board WiFi service. The latest portion of its sprawling 21,000 mile network to be boosted is the flagship Acela fleet running between Washington and Boston.

Amtrak officials said that the new system, which replaces much of the kit first installed back in 2010, will mean that download speeds on board will be up to six times faster. Further down the line, upgrades are planned for all Northeast Regional trains. These changes are widely predicted to happen over the next two years.

The Acela trains had previously been upgraded to handle LTE connectivity, with each car connected to the other via wireless links. However, one of the problems was that this had led to a bottleneck of traffic between the on-board control unit in the cafe car and passengers in other carriages.

The most recent change has seen the entire on-board system revamped, including modems, access points and antennas. The new in-train connection system, which has been completed on all Acela trainsets, hooks up each car with gigabit cabling, eliminating one of the major pain points of the network.

The train operator reports that its WiFi service can now support streaming video and several popular online services have now been unblocked as a result. Further, the new network has opened the way for Amtrak to experiment with streaming entertainment from an on-board server. It is understood that a proof-of-concept test will begin later this fiscal year. The plan is to trial free and premium content before making a decision on a rollout.

Admittedly, of the 44 routes that Amtrak operates the Acela service is the jewel in the crown with New York and Washington the most popular stations by some way. In fact, the North East corridor region is expected to be home to 64 million people by 2020, an increase of around 25% on current figures. Demand for the WiFi service has been high with as many as 90% of active devices connecting to it on peak journeys.

At the same time as rolling out the new on-board system, Amtrak is moving forward with its proprietary trackside wireless network. The operator is poised to begin awarding contracts for a further 30 miles of coverage. This should help fill in the gap between the current ten mile trial section and Philadelphia. However, even after this next section is completed, Amtrak will still have to cover another 410 miles of track along the Northeast Corridor.

The trackside network is based on 5.8Ghz spectrum, which is on the extreme high-end for viable mobile connections. Because the spectrum being used necessitates line-of-sight, Amtrak is placing communication towers at intervals of between one to one and a half miles, with denser spacing through curves and urban areas.

Lenetta McCampbell, senior director of passenger experience at Amtrak, told the Washington Post, the company will “Never be able to satisfy all the demand using commercial networks only. Our goal is to have unfettered Internet access, and we can’t do that in a cellular environment. We want an experience like a user would have at home.”

Meanwhile, Amtrak is planning a proof-of-concept trial of satellite connectivity on a western long distance train this fiscal year. McCampbell says her primary concern with this project is the size of the antenna, as numerous century old tunnels leave very little room for adding extra kit to the train roofs.

For the satellite proof-of-concept, Amtrak has decided to utilise Ku band connectivity, rather than Ka band. Apparently this is because of its signal strength and its diversity back up. The Ku band operates in the 12-18Ghz frequency and is reportedly less subject to rain fade than the Ka band which operates in the 26-40GHz frequency.

Last year, Amtrak received a US$2.45 billion loan to help pay for new trains, stations and track upgrades. The loan was the largest single amount ever loaned by the US Department of Transportation.



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