Bruce551 Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 San Francisco?s BART Offers Wi-Fi By Naomi Graychase February 4, 2009 San Francisco Bay Area commuters will soon have the ability to access fee-based Wi-Fi Internet access from BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains and stations. Â Wi-Fi Rail and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) have finalized a 20-year agreement to provide high-speed mobile Wi-Fi access throughout the BART transit system and on all BART commuter trains. Wi-Fi Rail has been conducting a pilot test of the system on portions of BART, including the four underground stations in downtown San Francisco and a 2.2 mile stretch of open-air track in Hayward, CA. Service has been free during the one-year testing period, during which more than 15,000 users signed on and used the system more than 85,000 times, according to Wi-Fi Rail. The company says users experienced "seamless service" between the stations during the testing phase. The network was designed to deliver consistent speeds "capable of providing video to and from the train, Internet VPN, VoIP, train telemetry, and a host of other applications that a giant wireless LAN can offer,? said Wi-Fi Rail in a statement January 19. According to Wi-Fi Rail, tests on trains moving at over 81 MPH have consistently demonstrated upload and download speeds in excess of 15Mbps. The service will soon begin expanding in segments until it runs system-wide, enabling commuters with Wi-Fi-enabled devices to surf the Web, send e-mail, and even videoconference (should they want to), when riding the rails or waiting in the stations. Subscriptions will be available at daily, monthly, and annual rates. Â The network utilizes standards-based technologies, which include a collapsed fiber-optic backbone, Cisco wireless access points, routers, and switches, and Apple OS-X servers. Â ?We are thrilled to showcase our technology in the network designed for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system--it is a great partnership,? said Cooper Lee, CEO and inventor of the patent-pending mass-transit Wi-Fi technology. ?This is a unique opportunity to demonstrate what high-speed Wi-Fi access, interconnected by a huge fiber-optic backbone, can mean to a transit system and its passengers.? Â Once completed, the Wi-Fi Rail deployment in the BART system will become the largest high-bandwidth mobile Internet LAN in the United States. Completion of network construction is planned for the end of 2010. Â Naomi Graychase is Managing Editor at Wi-Fi Planet. She is a former San Francisco resident who now lives and works in Western Massachusetts. ***Wi-Fi for BTS & MRT coming soon, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 LOL. Would be a dream.... I wondered about that but wifi doesn't work too well in a moving vehicle, unless the base station is the vehicle itself.. yet you need a seemless transition for when you leave the vehicle.. so 3G, 3.5G, 4G might work better. There is already wifi along some MRT stations I believe (just not in the wagons). I discovered a HSPA access point recently and that speed was phenomenal though. The full 2Mbps here in BKK. I liked it.. Can't wait for them to roll it out all over town. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterMatlock Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I'm waiting anxiously for "3G" to rollout in BKK. My building's wifi is pants. Although, I'm not so certain WHEN it will actually be available. I was at Paragon on the weekend and got some less than confidence inspiring answers. True said "soon". AIS said "maybe in 3-4 months. DTAC said "probably this year". You'll notice the ambiguity and lack of specifics. I guess that comes when the Thai "officials" are hammering out the "tea money" for the licenses. Wifi is useless in a moving vehicle. 3G is likely also to be useless in BKK as the coverage is almost guaranteed to be crap. GPRS slows down to base levels in a taxi. Still nice to have something to do while sitting in traffic. As far as HSDPA, don't get your hopes up anytime soon. Even the technologically superior Laotians and Cambodians don't have that yet. Only the God-like Filipinos. :wink: Poor Thailand... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 It will depends on the NTC and on our 'wonderful' ITC minister who talks about 'webcoms' and 'censoring the internet to ward of the foreign invaders'. The HDSPA trial works nice though at a location in BKK. I wondered why I did not switch on my airard immediately as I was so used to logging in to wifi but that's only limited to 256Kbps. Only after 90 mins when it took 2 mins to reconnect, I hooked up the aircard and was pleasantly surprised. Could have saved quite some time that day. The only hitch I noticed is that their dns service seemed very flaky.. Sometimes it just completely dropped out. But when it resolved... speeds were great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterMatlock Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 It will depends on the NTC and on our 'wonderful' ITC minister who talks about 'webcoms' and 'censoring the internet to ward of the foreign invaders'.The HDSPA trial works nice though at a location in BKK. I wondered why I did not switch on my airard immediately as I was so used to logging in to wifi but that's only limited to 256Kbps. Only after 90 mins when it took 2 mins to reconnect, I hooked up the aircard and was pleasantly surprised. Could have saved quite some time that day. The only hitch I noticed is that their dns service seemed very flaky.. Sometimes it just completely dropped out. But when it resolved... speeds were great. Well, at least she was able to Google her job description. Better than the previous "ICT minister". I'm sure her job experience as a ******* NURSE will help her lead Thailand out of the technological Stone Age. hehe I'm really hoping that 3G will work out here... Of course, that hope is tempered by the realization that Thailand usually half-arses everything it does. Would be nice to have higher than 40kbps data rate in the hospital in April. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce551 Posted February 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Most of the time it seems like "Thailand Style Capitalism" is more beneficial to Big Telecommunications Companies than to THE PEOPLE which these companies serve. The free market system in Thailand is only for those who can afford it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grezzzy_greer Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Must say I am not that bothered by not having internet access on the BTS - I don't usually access the internet on my mobile in any case, but I feel sure that I can wait a few minutes when I am on a train - as for WiFi in a car - fair enough if you get stuck in traffic, but personally I have always found that reading in a moving vehicle makes me throw up anyway... Are we all screaming for something that we will curse when we actually get it? Do we really want to let our pursuers (work) follow us even on the train? Do we need sports results in the BTS? Do we want more of that bloody rubbish advertising on the train - more noise - more junk - more destruction of the last bit of peace and (relative) quiet we have no matter where we are? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterMatlock Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Must say I am not that bothered by not having internet access on the BTS - I don't usually access the internet on my mobile in any case, but I feel sure that I can wait a few minutes when I am on a train - as for WiFi in a car - fair enough if you get stuck in traffic, but personally I have always found that reading in a moving vehicle makes me throw up anyway...Are we all screaming for something that we will curse when we actually get it? Do we really want to let our pursuers (work) follow us even on the train? Do we need sports results in the BTS? Do we want more of that bloody rubbish advertising on the train - more noise - more junk - more destruction of the last bit of peace and (relative) quiet we have no matter where we are? Yeah. I do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.