Sooo, anyone have the scoop on Amtrak Wi-Fi as this starts to open a lot of possibilities with Crew performance, train configuration, marketing, etc.
So lets start with the basics:
1. Is there a bandwidth limitation on Amtrak Wi-Fi?
2. Is part of the backwidth isolated or protected from crowding out and reservered for Crew member usage.
So what I am thinking now that Amtrak is implementing Wi-Fi maybe they can expand the application into other areas such as:
1. Passenger Car Mechanical Troubleshooting.
2. Passenger Car Mechanical Monitoring. Restrooms out of order, brakes sticking, etc.
3. Passenger Car Configuration and reporting. How many sleeping compartments open for sale and when, how many open seats in coach? What are liquor sales on the train so far? What are snack sales on the train so far? Dining car sales?
4. What food or beverage inventory is running low.
5. Crew notes about potential problem passengers sharable between crew members.
6. Seems there might be more tablet monitoring applications out there.
The biggest barrier appears to be reliability-my experience with Amtrak WiFi has been characterized primarily by dead zones and extremely slow speeds.
Wi-Fi coverage on the Pacfic Surfliners was fairly good, speeds were slow as the whole car is sharing the equivalent of one cell-phone hot spot. I had better luck using my own cell phone to provide a hot-spot.
Single level LD trains with a heritage dining car will have problems. The Heritage cars do not have Wi-Fi installed so cars beyond the lounge with diner between will have spotty reception until the trains get V-2 diners.
Dear Lord, can't people do without the computer for a few hours?
Except perhaps on the NEC, they've already disconnected by taking the train instead of the plane. Why not go all the way, and REEE-LAXXXX!
I don't believe they're all CEOs who can't be out of touch for a minute. And, if looking out the window and talking to their fellow passengers are too boring, they probably should book the plane next time.
God knows they're poor enough company.
A lot of people use wi-fi connections productively with work or for enjoyment. To me the question is: does Amtrak need a new dining car just to get wi-fi installed? The Geek Squad could probably do it cheaply if Amtrak lacks the competence.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
dakotafred Dear Lord, can't people do without the computer for a few hours? Except perhaps on the NEC, they've already disconnected by taking the train instead of the plane. Why not go all the way, and REEE-LAXXXX! I don't believe they're all CEOs who can't be out of touch for a minute. And, if looking out the window and talking to their fellow passengers are too boring, they probably should book the plane next time. God knows they're poor enough company.
Being able to stream music makes relaxing that much easier (and drowns out annoyingly loud people).
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Not everyone who rides a train is interested in looking at the scenery. When I lived in Connecticut and took to the train to NYC, I was amazed at how few businessmen even glanced out the window. In those pre-wired days they would open their briefcases and get to work right away, to and from Manhattan. But reflect; if you rode the same trains every day, how long would it take you to get bored with the same view every day for years?
Or on LD trains, consider: from Chicago west to the Rockies the landscape is pretty monotonous. Unending miles of corn fields or flat empty land, or worse, desert; for non-railfans the long hours need to be filled up somehow, whether by book, magazine, or something else. Several years ago I was on #5 in Colorado when a landslide blocked the track ahead. For about 4 or 5 hours the train just sat. Looking out the window lost its charm quickly even though we were in a fairly scenic area. I had, for the first time, a laptop computer with me and thanks to my phone having a hot spot I was able to email people, watch a movie, etc. What I noticed was the lack of tension among the other passengers. Since nearly everyone was using one device or other there were no temper tantrums; most people found the time passed more quickly than it otherwise would have. Too, once it gets dark outside there is even less to look at and admire. Watching a movie on my computer makes the night journey much better.
I know dakotafred has spoken of the advantages of a nice glass of good wine to help the hours pass; my choice is scotch. Same effect. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube; the day of the computer, etc. is here. So have a drink, look out the window, watch a movie or the news, or pretend it's 1928 and read a book or a magazine. Speaking of reading books, no wonder people embraced airlines to speed up the journey. Imagine traveling back and forth across the country many times in the course of a career or life. How many times can one look at the landscape and not be, well, bored?
And yes, I know railfans answer that question differently from the rest of the train-riding public.
NKP guyToo, once it gets dark outside there is even less to look at and admire. Watching a movie on my computer makes the night journey much better. I know dakotafred has spoken of the advantages of a nice glass of good wine to help the hours pass; my choice is scotch. Same effect. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube; the day of the computer, etc. is here. So have a drink, look out the window, watch a movie or the news, or pretend it's 1928 and read a book or a magazine. Speaking of reading books, no wonder people embraced airlines to speed up the journey. Imagine traveling back and forth across the country many times in the course of a career or life. How many times can one look at the landscape and not be, well, bored?
Precisely! And obviously, anyone who reads and/or participates on these pages like using the internet, dakotafred included. My choice is a single malt (most recently Ardbeg) or a cognac.
schlimm A lot of people use wi-fi connections productively with work or for enjoyment. To me the question is: does Amtrak need a new dining car just to get wi-fi installed? The Geek Squad could probably do it cheaply if Amtrak lacks the competence.
Amtrak actually has a really good IT Department in DC based on what I heard working via IT circles. A lot of the impetus and design for Julie came from Amtrak IT. I am not sure they are responsible for the Wi-Fi, they might subcontract that out to another firm.
Amtraks reservation system is also much, much better and newer than most Airlines or even what VIA Rail uses..........from what I have heard.
Sounds like from what I read here they need more bandwidth with the onboard Wi-Fi as it reads like it is too weak or nimble. I think it is rather absurd that VIA rail can provide Wi-Fi in the Rocky Mountains on their LD trains and Amtrak still has not rolled out Wi-Fi on their LD trains. VIA Rail uses satellite and mounts the dish sometimes in front of the dome car obstructing a small part of the view (I would think a better solution can be found that what VIA Rail uses with radomes).
Would be cool if Amtrak could market a Mobile Wi-Fi based App that works on their trains to order drinks and food direct from the Dining car after hours or between seatings or watch progress of the train on a map.
CMStPnP schlimm A lot of people use wi-fi connections productively with work or for enjoyment. To me the question is: does Amtrak need a new dining car just to get wi-fi installed? The Geek Squad could probably do it cheaply if Amtrak lacks the competence. Amtrak actually has a really good IT Department in DC based on what I heard working via IT circles. A lot of the impetus and design for Julie came from Amtrak IT. I am not sure they are responsible for the Wi-Fi, they might subcontract that out to another firm.
Perhaps the suggestion of needing to wait for V-II diners was merely a justification for replacing the heritage cars.
schlimm NKP guy Too, once it gets dark outside there is even less to look at and admire. Watching a movie on my computer makes the night journey much better. I know dakotafred has spoken of the advantages of a nice glass of good wine to help the hours pass; my choice is scotch. Same effect. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube; the day of the computer, etc. is here. So have a drink, look out the window, watch a movie or the news, or pretend it's 1928 and read a book or a magazine. Speaking of reading books, no wonder people embraced airlines to speed up the journey. Imagine traveling back and forth across the country many times in the course of a career or life. How many times can one look at the landscape and not be, well, bored? Precisely! And obviously, anyone who reads and/or participates on these pages like using the internet, dakotafred included. My choice is a single malt (most recently Ardbeg) or a cognac.
NKP guy Too, once it gets dark outside there is even less to look at and admire. Watching a movie on my computer makes the night journey much better. I know dakotafred has spoken of the advantages of a nice glass of good wine to help the hours pass; my choice is scotch. Same effect. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube; the day of the computer, etc. is here. So have a drink, look out the window, watch a movie or the news, or pretend it's 1928 and read a book or a magazine. Speaking of reading books, no wonder people embraced airlines to speed up the journey. Imagine traveling back and forth across the country many times in the course of a career or life. How many times can one look at the landscape and not be, well, bored?
There are three separate things involved here (four if you want to consider uplink bandwidth separate from downlink/streaming bandwidth):
1) the actual WiFi (802.11 or .15 or whatever) connectivity between devices and the associated router on the train;
2) storage for low-latency or packet traffic with 'long enough' time-to-live to optimize uplink bandwidth or make WiFi channel allocation and modulation optimized;
3) capacity of the actual "ISP" streams that link the router to 'the Internet' or other connected channels -- I think this is currently largely by satellite, with the design and probably much of the equipment 'frozen' for support and maintenance at a relatively primitive stage of evolution...
Note that e-mail traffic in particular can be treated as metadata in both directions; a number of providers (my old AT&T service was one) could actually stream e-mail over 'protected' WiFi connections that were not 'paid for by me', although any attempt to actually obtain data on the device (unsurprisingly!) resulted in errors. There is no excuse for not assuring even relatively low-latency (within no more than a few seconds) e-mail communications; I suspect the same would apply to many forms of messaging (SMS over TCP/IP, for example) of even streaming in a broadcast protocol with only confirmation of packet or message receipt needed from the device environment.
Meanwhile, even a relatively primitive caching server connected to the router might make some forms of "cloud-based" access more direct and faster without involving massive software protection rights invocation... this being like a much later version of the old Public Broadcasting Service 'videotaping' feeds of educational programming at night, now with SaaS upgrading...
While RME gave a reasonably good explanation of the requirements for wifi service, he missed the biggest challenges faced in implementing wifi service on trains or other vehicles. Most of the challenges have to do with physics, and therefore have to be fixed by magic, which is not always easy...
1. The connection to the outside world is not stationary. Satellite connections suffer from long transit times, due to the distance to the satellite. Use of cellular data service, whether LTE or WiMAX, or any of the other flavors, require continual reassociation with local "towers" at fairly short intervals. For connection-based services IP addresses have to be maintained, so some sort of mobile IP service is necessary. Many of the "tower" connections are sized for one or a few users, and don't scale well to large populations. Different "magic" has to be applied to each of the possible feeds. Dragging a fiber optic cable along would be the best, but that would cause other issues.
2. Caching servers would help if many of the passengers wanted to view the same things (only 1 copy of the Facebook login page!), but don't help much at all when each user is going after something completely different (all of their relatives' and friends' photos).
3. The shape of the cars is about as bad as it gets from the point of a wifi engineer, even with directional antennas. A setup for an office with the dimensions of an Amfleet car would have 3-4 "access points", on different channels, with some overlap. The small cell size would mean that well-behaved user gear would also run at reduced power, letting a relatively large number of users share a small radio space. On the other hand, an office of that shape wouldn't have 80 seats... Newer "beam forming" techniques help a lot in conventional buildings, but don't work as well with the limited angles allowed in a railroad car.
4. Interior furnishings, including people, soak up an astounding amount of wifi signal. The most commonly used band doesn't deal well with either structural steel or water, which is most of what people are made of.
5. Some user devices are well-behaved, some are not. The user population on a train is essentially "uncontrolled" for radio power, driver versions and protocol behavior. Even in environments with good client control, things can go wrong for what seems to be no particular reason.
I'm actually impressed that the Amtrak wifi installations work at all, ever. Even stationary wifi installations with good back end structure can be frustrating. Part of my job has involved wifi engineering since before it was even standardized. We have watched the number of devices in use explode with most users expecting it to "just work". Support is difficult to provide in the environment ("Just connect to our web site for instructions!") so I'm not surprised that the user experience is less than perfect.
Local football stadium installed WiFi for last season - all I heard about it was complaints for slow to non-existant service to 70,000 fans at a single location, that wasn't moving 125 MPH.
Magic indeed!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
MegaBus, etc offer wifi. Do they have the same problems?
Bus installations do have some of the same problems. The lower speeds and smaller number of passengers mitigate them to some extent. I expect bus passengers may also have a lower expectation than Amtrak passengers.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
The early versions of the Conductor's iPhone all used cellular data, and didn't depend on on-board wifi. Regular crew have learned how to adapt to spotty coverage. On-device caching of current reservation lists helps by not requiring real-time access.
On several cross-country trips I have watched people try to use cell phones in areas where coverage is, at best, spotty. The funniest example was someone calling a friend and being really impressed at the call continuing as we entered the Moffat Tunnel ("hello? hello?!!").
WiFi is available on most ICE trains in Germany. Why can't Amtrak?
WiFi internet access on board of the ICE and in the DB Lounges HotSpot is available on board of many ICEs. You can use the internet in all DB Lounges and on all trains which feature the HotSpot logo on the routes you find on the map. (service through Deutsche Telekom)
Don't expect WiFi on the Capitol Limited over Sand Patch grade - there isn't even cell phone service in most locales.
schlimm WiFi is available on most ICE trains in Germany. Why can't Amtrak? WiFi internet access on board of the ICE and in the DB Lounges HotSpot is available on board of many ICEs. You can use the internet in all DB Lounges and on all trains which feature the HotSpot logo on the routes you find on the map. (service through Deutsche Telekom)
I am just guessing here but I suspect the following based on observation.
1. Union Pacific Business Train used Satellite Technology based on LANDSAT phones.
2. VIA Rail does the same as UP on their LD trains through the Rockies.
3. CSX apparently also has the technology as I saw it on the POTUS trains they ran through Michigan during the 1992 election.
Strongly suspect Amtrak uses a much cheaper service than one that uses Satellites overhead because I do not see the large radar domes on the top of Amtrak Cars that I see on the UP,CSX, and VIA Rail cars.......probably one reason why folks complain so much about it here online. I was impressed with the VIA Wi-Fi on the Jasper to Prince Rupert Skeena but I was one of only three passengers on the train...........so not a good test of bandwidth or peak usage.
CMStPnPStrongly suspect Amtrak uses a much cheaper service than one that uses Satellites overhead because I do not see the large radar domes on the top of Amtrak Cars that I see on the UP,CSX, and VIA Rail cars.......probably one reason why folks complain so much about it here online.
There are no radar domes on DB's ICEs. Nor on Virgin Trains East Coast in the UK. But they have good wi-fi.
Yesterday evening, after eating dinner in the diner on the Capitol Limited soon after leaving Chicago, I went back to my room, and tried to make a telephone call--and there was no service wherever we were just south of Lake Michigan (we were sitting still at the time).
As an aside, we stopped in Washington just five minutes late this afternoon, after being 30 or more minutes late here and there.
Johnny
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