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Boston WiFi Party Rolls On ...
(13 Oct 2008, BWCS Staff)The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has announced it is to press ahead with plans to install WiFi on every train travelling along its commuter rail system in the North East of the US. The move follows extensive testing of the on-board service in the Boston area. The US$1.4 million scheme will see some 258 coaches fitted out for high-speed wireless internet access.
A free trial has been running since January of this year on the Worcester/Framingham line to Boston's South Station. Roll out to the entire MBTA fleet will start next month and should be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2009. The annual fee for running the service has been put at US$300,000. The 13 commuter rail lines in the Boston area carry a total of 18,000 commuters daily from 17 different stations. It is not yet clear how much the MBTA plans to charge for the service.
The trial, which ran for eight months, was one of the largest WiFi on train experiments undertaken so far in the US. The system used externally mounted antenna to receive signals from Sprint's EVDO service. The rail operator reported a lot of enthusiastic support from passengers right from the beginning of the trial.
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