[Closed] The rail network - UK's biggest NotSpot...?

ScotRail has free wi-fi.

Good on them...

should be a basic franchise requiement

Indeed as Matt says - I was using it today

So it isn't quite as big a not spot as you thought. 😉

No signal,

For you or for everybody? Are you saying its the Rail Network's responsibility that all 4 mobile networks should cover their routes? Or just the one you're on

Wifi,

How is their wifi going to get a signal if your phone can't? Or if it can - why aren't you on that network?

Train window coatings are designed to block radiation, unfortunately this also does a good job of blocking mobile phone signals getting in/out

Train WiFi uses antenna on the roof so not affected by this hence you get a better coverage using wifi

I'd like to be able to vote for which company gets the franchise for your local line, some are definitely better than others!

My (limited) understanding is that the transport networks have their own data networks set up (for route / timetable info on local bus networks)

GSMR (?) on the rail network??? Presumably the paywall wifi services (x country) piggyback onto the GSMR network... It's never going to be practicable to get the regular networks network coverage in place for such an extensive linear infrastructure...

BUT, if my local £1.50 bus ticket can get me free access on my local bus network wifi, then I'm totally ffffin baffled why £300 can't get me modern comms on a train 😡

FFFHS Sort it out...!

No signal, even for a text... for miles and miles and miles

Just like the road network right across the south-west of the country, Sometset, Devon and Cornwall; you can drive for miles without any meaningful signal, certainly no data of any kind. Travelling between Westbury and Yeovil, for example, or long stretches of the A30/303.
There was talk of forcing the networks to share resources, like the roaming all across the EU, which has been quietly dropped because the networks threatened to increase their charges in other areas.

^^ took 7 minutes to upload, sat in a city centre mainline station.

The main problem with WiFi in Scotrail is that they use 4G. Guess what's the reception like North from Central Belt... 🙂

There's no better solution, though.

Glad it's not just me then! How come it seems that the person having the very loud, very irritating conversation has a rock steady signal, when I can't even look at instabangers?!!

Think the on train wifi uses normal cell towers. GSMR is a closed system for safety reasons, can't see them opening it up for the public.

GSM-r is a railway-only mobile network, and the business case for it assumed at least some commercial traffic that was paid for. Unfortunately (typically for the pseudo-nationalised infrastructure provider) it took nearly 10 years to roll out so that the 2G technology was available to operators at about the same time as the general public were gearing up for 4G.

The fibre network is there so something could be done, but despite pressure from operators NR have failed to do anything in a timely fashion towards providing even a WiMAX solution.

Unfortunately, the basic rules of physics mean that getting the kind of download speeds demanded by a train full of people between a fixed base and a moving train Is severely challenging. Typically the more modern trains with the reflective windows carry up to 400 people when fully loaded. I have no idea what sort of data transfer rate is required to provide a half-decent wifi service to this many people but the best the rail operators have is a series of 4G transmitters bolted to the outside of trains that were designed back when mobile phone technology was in its infancy.

I get three or mostly four g almost all the way from Cardiff to London on EE

NR have better things to spend the money on imo

Unfortunately, the basic rules of physics mean that getting the kind of download speeds demanded by a train full of people between a fixed base and a moving train Is severely challenging.

This. And don't forget all those cuttings, tunnels, trees, and buildings that railway lines encounter. Mobile phone signals aren't magic, they follow the same rules as other radio waves.

South West Trains, main line in and out of Waterloo can be very patchy at times, on a number of networks.

There was talk of putting mobile cells within trains and no need to sign up to wifi then, but of course there's less money in that.

Wifi is useless to me as commuter type trains with SWT don't have it. Where there is wifi on other trains it's usually not free and generally "free" wifi is a faff trying to register so they can spam you and then you find the connection is 1 byte per second.