31 replies to this topic

[transit54]

NY Times is running a piece highlighting passenger difficulties with WiFi. Amtrak says improvements should be in place by the end of the year.

http://travel.nytime...s.html?src=dayp

[AutoTrDvr]

NY Times is running a piece highlighting passenger difficulties with WiFi. Amtrak says improvements should be in place by the end of the year.

http://travel.nytime...s.html?src=dayp

I gather that it's only available on the Acela at present??? I'd love to have it on the AT, but that's probably way too much wishful thinking, and too difficult logistics wise, along the CSX route.

[afigg]

I gather that it's only available on the Acela at present??? I'd love to have it on the AT, but that's probably way too much wishful thinking, and too difficult logistics wise, along the CSX route.

WiFi is available on the following trains listed on the website. Well, its available until several hundred other people try to use it at the same time and when the nearest cell phone towers can handle the data load from a passing train.

In the past several years, Amtrak has added WiFi to the Acela, the Amfleet I coach and café cars, the Surfliners in CA, the Talgos on the Cascades corridor. WiFi equipment has not yet been added to the Amfleet II, Superliner, and Horizon cars. There was a item in an Amtrak report about adding WiFi to the AutoTrain lounge cars, but that apparently has not happened yet.

[leemell]

I gather that it's only available on the Acela at present??? I'd love to have it on the AT, but that's probably way too much wishful thinking, and too difficult logistics wise, along the CSX route.

WiFi is available on the following trains listed on the website. Well, its available until several hundred other people try to use it at the same time and when the nearest cell phone towers can handle the data load from a passing train.

In the past several years, Amtrak has added WiFi to the Acela, the Amfleet I coach and café cars, the Surfliners in CA, the Talgos on the Cascades corridor. WiFi equipment has not yet been added to the Amfleet II, Superliner, and Horizon cars. There was a item in an Amtrak report about adding WiFi to the AutoTrain lounge cars, but that apparently has not happened yet.

Coast Starlight has WiFi.

[amamba]

I have consistently posted on this forum with my disappointment with the amtrak wifi service. I understand the limitations that the trains face, but to me it is a problem of expectations, as the article mentions. Amtrak has heavily marketed their wifi which is so slow as to be unusable. I do much better on my iPhone with the 3G connection than attempting to use the wifi.

And the wifi did not work on the Coast Starlight when I rode it last year.

I actually find the wifi to be quite good on the regional in October, but I was sitting in the cafe car and it was before the hard launch. I think it was only good because I was in the cafe/lounge and not that many folks were using it.

[AutoTrDvr]

I gather that it's only available on the Acela at present??? I'd love to have it on the AT, but that's probably way too much wishful thinking, and too difficult logistics wise, along the CSX route.

WiFi is available on the following trains listed on the website. Well, its available until several hundred other people try to use it at the same time and when the nearest cell phone towers can handle the data load from a passing train.

In the past several years, Amtrak has added WiFi to the Acela, the Amfleet I coach and café cars, the Surfliners in CA, the Talgos on the Cascades corridor. WiFi equipment has not yet been added to the Amfleet II, Superliner, and Horizon cars. There was a item in an Amtrak report about adding WiFi to the AutoTrain lounge cars, but that apparently has not happened yet.

I don't know if it would be possible to have WiFi on the entire Auto Train route. If it's the same dependence as my cell/Blackberry (Verizon 3G), then there are a lot of gaps along the way. And it's not reliable if it can fade out on you en-route. I would imagine some new towers would have to be installed, at great expense.

Probably not profitable in the long run. Unless the "snowbirds" start to get interested in WiFi, I doubt it will happen on the Auto Train.

[Donctor]

And the wifi did not work on the Coast Starlight when I rode it last year.

It worked for me for about half the trip.

[gatelouse]

Auto Train appeared to be testing it out last winter. There was signal in the lounge. It didn't work well at the time--connection would come to a halt when passing through some rural areas.

[Anderson]

As a rule, I've found that the Wi-Fi works pretty well in Virginia...but then again, down here we're not fighting with a thousand other people on trains between DC and Philly for those connections.

[AutoTrDvr]

Auto Train appeared to be testing it out last winter. There was signal in the lounge. It didn't work well at the time--connection would come to a halt when passing through some rural areas.

Precisely.

[afigg]

I don't know if it would be possible to have WiFi on the entire Auto Train route. If it's the same dependence as my cell/Blackberry (Verizon 3G), then there are a lot of gaps along the way. And it's not reliable if it can fade out on you en-route. I would imagine some new towers would have to be installed, at great expense.

Probably not profitable in the long run. Unless the "snowbirds" start to get interested in WiFi, I doubt it will happen on the Auto Train.

One partial solution for cell phone coverage, is have the server in the cafe cars access multiple vendors; Verizon, AT&T. So if the train is passing through a dead area for Verizon, use AT&T if it there is a signal. This will only go so far, as the trains on tracks well away from the major roads are likely to be passing through poor cell coverage areas.

Amtrak will have to add WiFi to all of its trains to compete, including the AutoTrain. The funds to add WiFi to the remainder of the fleet is in the FY2013 budget, but the preliminary FY13 capital budget will get cut when Congress pass (if it passes) the FY13 budget. Remains to be seen if more WiFi systems will be installed in FY13.

[AlanB]

I don't know if it would be possible to have WiFi on the entire Auto Train route. If it's the same dependence as my cell/Blackberry (Verizon 3G), then there are a lot of gaps along the way. And it's not reliable if it can fade out on you en-route. I would imagine some new towers would have to be installed, at great expense.

Probably not profitable in the long run. Unless the "snowbirds" start to get interested in WiFi, I doubt it will happen on the Auto Train.

One partial solution for cell phone coverage, is have the server in the cafe cars access multiple vendors; Verizon, AT&T. So if the train is passing through a dead area for Verizon, use AT&T if it there is a signal. This will only go so far, as the trains on tracks well away from the major roads are likely to be passing through poor cell coverage areas.

That's exactly what does happen, the system is setup with cards from all the major carriers. And it moves between the cards that at any given moment have the strongest signal. This while never providing 100% continuous coverage, will probably work for a large majority of Amtrak's LD trains. The biggest problems are see are the Coast Starlight in Oregon, the Zephyr in the Rockies, the Cardinal in New River Gorge, and a large part of the Empire Builder's route.

And the Auto Train did run a test in the lounge cars a bit over a year ago now, IIRC. I'm not sure just what they discovered and/or decided from that test. However, to my knowledge, at least for now that system is gone. I'm not sure if that's the same system that is now in use on the Acela & the Regionals.

[johnny.menhennet]

The wifi on the Pacific Surfliner is actually decent. By no means great or even good, but bearable. I imagine that that's the case, though, only in the cafe car, as it probably gets worse as you travel away.

From the article, I'm not quite certain that the Acela makes up 25% of ridership on Amtrak.. Seems like a number that so many of these reporters throw out there out of laziness to actually check facts.

[Devil's Advocate]

The system is setup with cards from all the major carriers. And it moves between the cards that at any given moment have the strongest signal. This while never providing 100% continuous coverage, will probably work for a large majority of Amtrak's LD trains.

We're talking about hundreds of passengers per train here, many of whom already have some sort of wireless device ready to fire up should a usable signal ever arrive. Does each train have dozens of separate access points on each of the major networks to give the users a fighting chance of a useful signal? I have tried every major carrier (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) along the Sunset Limited route and received little or no service no matter the card or provider. So far as I can tell it's not even close to being ready for dozens or possibly hundreds of users at once and there is little incentive for the network carriers to install more towers for trains that run once a day at most and only once every few days in the case of Union Pacific's Sunset Route.

[Cho Cho Charlie]

I have consistently posted on this forum with my disappointment with the amtrak wifi service. I understand the limitations that the trains face, but to me it is a problem of expectations, as the article mentions. Amtrak has heavily marketed their wifi which is so slow as to be unusable. I do much better on my iPhone with the 3G connection than attempting to use the wifi.

Yep. WiFi on a moving LD train is simply an unworkable idea.

This is a good example that sometimes a company should ignore customer requests because even though they sound reasonable on the surface, they are just plain bad ideas. And as in this case, something a company can't possibly achieve "on the cheap".

[bmorechris]

I had pretty good luck with the WIFI on a sold out 161 (w/ an extra coach, so likely 500+ passengers) this past Monday. I saw probably 20% of my car at any one time using wireless devices, whether they were all using the Amtrakconnect WIFI or not I can't confirm. I was able to surf the web and use google maps no problem. A guy across the aisle from me was streaming a Netflix movie, and he did have some trouble with it stalling, but he did get through the whole movie. One thing to consider is that more and more people are going to try to connect to the WIFI because most wireless carriers are doing away with unlimited data plans, people are going to want to conserve that by connecting to WIFI whenever they can.

[mulveyr]

I have to wonder how long this will ultimately be a problem. Carriers are slowly but surely moving towards data plans that allow you to have multiple devices attached to a single account, so you'll no longer need one plan for your phone, another for your tablet, etc.

And with the move to 4G, WiFi is horribly slow anyhow. ;-) I generally get around 12-4Mb/sec on my Droid Razr Max on 4G, which is insanely faster than any public WiFi network you're likely to find. As it gets rolled out to more areas and added to more devices, it would make little sense for people to compete for the limited bandwidth and area coverage of most WiFi networks.

[afigg]

From the article, I'm not quite certain that the Acela makes up 25% of ridership on Amtrak.. Seems like a number that so many of these reporters throw out there out of laziness to actually check facts.

The Acela provides 25% of Amtrak's ticket revenue while carrying around 11% of the total passengers. The Acela with 3.38 million passengers in FY2011 accounted for around 31% of the passengers traveling between endpoints on the NEC, so that is not the source of the 25% number. The reporter was stating what the Amtrak spokesman said. Since it was not a direct quote, the reported either messed up summarizing what was said or the Amtrak representative mis-spoke.