WiMax Hits 100 mph on Rails to Brighton

judgecorp writes "T-Mobile has put a Wi-Fi service on the London to Brighton Express commuter service. It uses WiMax (ok, pre-WiMax) for the uplink, and is cheap enough to put on any other long-distance rail service. One interesting thing is that they didn't need to wait for next year's "mobile" WiMax version: the system can handover between base stations at 100mph, using today's pre-WiMax (802.16d) products. The only drawback - in June the free trial ends, and we'll have to pay T-Mobile's high Wi-Fi charges."

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

100 mph WiMax hits the rails to Brighton
Service uses WiMax uplinks for Wi-Fi on the train

By Peter Judge, Techworld

Commuters from Brighton to London's Victoria station can use free broadband on the train, thanks to a Wi-Fi-and-WiMax service. The Brighton Express is an apt place for a pioneering Wi-Fi service, given Brighton's role as a high-tech media-savvy remote suburb of London (and home of more than one Techworld stalwart), but T-Mobile hopes to make this the standard way to deliver Internet connectivity on the move.

Users get an 802.11b Wi-Fi service in the carriages. A pre-WiMax system from Redline connects from antennas on the carriage roofs to base stations by the side of the track (very much like the non-mobile system at the Science Museum). The service was integrated by Nomad Digital, a WiMax specialist, and will be offered free by T-Mobile for a trial period.

Goodbye to satellites
"This is the first broadband Wi-Fi service on trains in the UK," said Jay Saw, manager for T-Mobile Hotspot, the company's Wi-Fi service. Wi-Fi has previously been provided by satellite based systems, on GNER (Great North Eastern Railway) and Virgin Trains, but the T-Mobile service on Southern Railways' Brighton service gives a fast upload as well as download, he explained.

The service is not actually complete: 37 base stations are in operation, and around 60 will be needed to cover the whole line, explained Nigel Wallbridge, of Nomad Digital. In the meantime, users get continuous service, as the service migrates to GPRS - using three modems per train - when it loses the WiMax signal. When the base stations are all in place, it will be a 60 mile-long hotzone, said Saw.

The service is also limited by the uplinks from the base stations - most of which use commercial ADSL services at up to 2 Mbit/s. "This is the right bottleneck to have," said Wallbridge. "It is easy to upgrade those links, and there is plenty more capacity in the pre-WiMax links, which can go up to 32 Mbit/s."

So far, only one of Southern's Brighton Express trains has Wi-Fi, with another 14 scheduled to get the service as it is rolled out.

No need to wait for mobile WiMax
Surprisingly, the system does not need any of the refinements that are proposed for the mobile version of WiMax, 802.16e, which will not be available till next year. Instead, it uses a standard early implementation of 802.16d, according to Simon Wilder, sales director of Redline.

"Mobile WiMax is being designed with a view to ad hoc connections of mobile laptops," he explained. "In this system, there are a limited number of devices connecting by WiMax, with known IP addresses, and they are moving in a very predictable manner." Redline's equipment gives very good latency handling, he said.

Negotiating access to the cupboardThe companies would not talk about the commercial arrangements, although it costs around £30,000 and 30 man-hours to install equipment on a train, and £5000 to place a base station by the track. Most of the base stations so far have been sited on Southern's railway stations.

Both T-Mobile and Southern clearly see this as a test-bed. Both say they want to expand access on trains, but will wait to see how well the Brighton service is used.

T-Mobile approached Southern asking for a train to experiment with around 15 months ago, and Nomad has developed the service since then. As well as the Wi-Fi access points, The train carries a server, two WiMax routers, a GPS / GPRS box, and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), all of which fits into a rack in one small cupboard.

One of the trickiest parts of the negotiation was getting access to that cupboard, said Wallbridge: "It used to be where the driver kept his sandwiches, and we had to reach an agreement."

Now the service is announced, usage has been climbing rapidly, with big peaks in the morning rush hour, says Saw. In June, T-Mobile will start charging at its normal rate for Wi-Fi hotspots - £5 per hour, or £13 for a one day pass (which can be used at other T-Mobile hotspots such as Starbucks).

Southern staff will probably be able to sell Wi-Fi vouchers, and leaflets about the service, but technical support will be by phone to T-Mobile.

Re:Great

[linuxpoweredtrekkie]

They are currently in the process of replacing all the trains on the london to brighton line with nice new ones, which are a lot better.
It is a very busy line however, at peak times people are bound to have to stand no matter how many seats there are.

Re:Trains

[l-ascorbic]

You'll notice the gp wrote "British rail network" not "British Rail network". Of course there's a British rail network. It runs on track owned by Network Rail, with services operated by the TOCs. It may have many owners, but there's still a network. You can still use one ticket to travel between any two stations in the country.

Re:100mph?

[pklong]

I'm impressed it reaced 100kph. I'm even more impressed they managed to get the driver to give up his sandwich shelf.

Now seriously Branson has had his trains touching on 140mph for a while now. The Eurostar runs at 186 mph this side of the channel. The record is 208 mph in the UK on a Eurostar test run.

The Intercity 125 is an exceptional train as important as trains like the Flying Scotsman. It is the reason so little of the UK is electrified. Still very much in use today it can reach 125mph, quite execeptional for a Diesel.

Past generations converted hundreds of miles of wide gauge track in the southwest was to standard gauge in a weekend. The victorians built hundreds of miles the Edinburgh to Inverness line in two years, why does it take so long to replace worn out rails today with modern equipment like JCB's and tunnel boring machines.

Re:Demand should lead supply

[pklong]

The south west is simply not electrified, you mean the south. I come from North Devon and believe me it's the back of beyond. It's a wonder the trains are not pulled by horses. Modern innovations like cable TV and large multiplexes are unknown.

The Pendolinos are just like the voyagers and supervoyagers except they are a little bigger inside. They are fast though, really fast. You really appreachiate the difference when you go to London on one and come back on one of Bransons relics.

GNER has been doing this for a year

[ISoldMyLowIdOnEbay]

Their rains are nicer (and faster) too. Still costs £8/hr unless you are in First Class (in which case it is "free"), but that isn't too bad if you are working - not so good for personal use though. They are one of the better train companies although £124 to travel from Leeds to London in peak hours isn't cheap!

Re:Speed must be wrong........

[The Grassy Knoll]

>The maximum speeds is somewhere around 60MPH!!!

Trolling rubbish

"The Inter-City 225 is the fastest train running in the UK. 225 refers to its maximum speed of 225 km/h 140 mph. This train operates on the East Coast Mainline." (www.o-keating.com)

Re:Great

[goldfishbrains]

Coming from London, and having studied at Sussex Uni [sussex.ac.uk] for the last few years,(so i use the southern mainline quite a bit) I can say that i've not had any real problem with the service.
Over the last two years they've replaced the rolling stock with new trains (tho not as nice as the Virgin Trains). I've not noticed the trains getting over crowded (only sometimes at peak hrs between East Croydon + London Victoria ... about 15mins). And there's usually someone walking up/down the train collecting rubbish.
The only gripes i've had are the weekend engineering works, which always seem to fall on days i want to travel. But since the bus driver's are normally happy to drop us off before the station, its a shorter walk home :)

Re:How queer...

[peterpi]

This Brightonian is currently working here [semantico.com], and used to work here [climaxgroup.com].

It's closer to central London in terms of journey time than many places inside Greater London.

Re:100mph?

[alanthenerd]

The intercity trains are diesel-electic i.e. a diesel engine powering a big generator powering an electric motor. So in actual fact the diesel engine doesn't go very fast.
I seem to remember that back when the intercity trains were being tested before introduction they had one up to 180mph but they were only ever allowed to go up to 125mph because of track conditions and other safety fears.

Re:GNER has been doing this for a year

[rapiddescent]

I've written a quick HOWTO on how the GNER system works with Linux. If you are interested then have a look here [demon.co.uk]

What makes the GNER system so fun is that you don't need to pay to get onto the train network - so you could have a great big LAN party going at 125mph between London and Edinburgh!

rd

Re:Trains

[Shisha]

No you can't. Take London -> Birmingham as an example. You can buy cheap Chiltern tickets for trains that take ages and go via Oxford and Leam. Or you can buy more expensice Virgin tickets for trains that go via Coventry.

Unreasonable charges

[Alioth]

If the charges are anywhere near as bad as the WiFi hotspot at London City airport, no thanks. Expensive and restrictive. You can't just, say, buy 15 minutes to check your email, the minimum is 1 hour - usually for about GPB6 or so - and you can't just use 15 mins one day, then 15 the next. (By contrast, in an airport, those 'payphone style' internet kiosks are GBP4/hr and you can buy just 15 minutes for £1 if you want, and you don't get to use up your laptop's battery).

Since I've already paid for GPRS access on my mobile phone, I'll just use my GPRS thanks. Although it's only 64kbit/s, for going on IRC, writing emails and Slashdotting it's more than adequate, and it works well on the train as well as in airports.

Re:How queer...

[singleantler]

All the people I've met who worked at Amex hated it, so I can see why it would give you a bad impression, especially as that area of Brighton isn't particularly nice either.

We've become known for "high-tech media savvy" because of the large number of new media companies down here, bolstered by efforts like the free wi-fi network on the beach [piertopier.net] (between the two piers, well, the pier and the remains of the other pier.) And in various pubs [looseconnection.com], the active new media community [brightonnewmedia.org] (including companies, freelancers [brightonfarm.com], and organising groups [wiredsussex.com])

There's lots going on here, it's just the surface of Brighton is quite grimy and in parts rather grim, so you don't see it immediately.

Re:100mph?

[gowen]

Now seriously Branson has had his trains touching on 140mph for a while now

Pendolinos are great. I commuted Crewe/Stoke to Manchester for a while and (shock, horror) Branson's Virgin service was quiet, convenient and hardly ever late.

Really.

That's Incredible!

[FlukeMeister]

As a long-suffering commuter, this news is really astounding. The London-Brighton express can reach 100MPH!

Of course, the speed of the train is pretty much irrelevant if you put the hotspot on the train, which is what GNER have been doing with their long-distance services for the last two years.

But who am I to quibble?

I get this train every morning...

[YuppieScum]

...and I can tell you that the implementation is very, very poor.

Not only do they not provide connectivity via a true AP, DHCP is still unable to dish out addresses - I've been getting 169.254.* since they turned it on...

Oh, and it's only available in 3 of the 12 carriages of the train, and only on one train so far...

100mph? Pah. 125mph for the last 6 months on GNER!

[tagishsimon]

GNER [gner.co.uk] has had WiFI on (faster) trains running between Aberdeen / [wikipedia.org] Leeds [wikipedia.org] and London [wikipedia.org]. The single drawback is that the firm that set it up, Icomera [icomera.com] having just sold a system to a Swedish train company, Linx AB [gner.co.uk], appears to be routing through Sweden, meaning that your default google becomes google.se [google.se]. Oh. And the GNER website has a lovely little map which updates itself as you wind up & down the country, showing you where you are. In sum, it rocks.