MyGlobalCity

The Internet Superhighway Goes On The Rails March 21, 2006

Planes, trains, and automobiles. The Internet has been available on airplanes for some time now. It’s only fitting that trains are next. VIA Rail Canada now offers WiFi access on their trains along the Quebec City - Windsor corridor.

For those of us that have been waiting 20 years for the promised high-speed trains along this rail corridor, being able to access the Internet on trains is no substitute. But it also means that we can work while travelling. Which sort of makes up for not being able to get to our destinations quickly.

The first thing that struck me, upon reading the article in ComputerWorld Canada (links below), is that it must have been quite challenging to work out the connection logistics of accessing the Internet from a moving train. While this corridor spans only one time zone, it’s about 1000 km (~600 mi) long and traverses two of Canada’s provinces. There are a lot of cellular grids involved.

In fact, the VIA Rail network switches between cellular, satellite or WiFi, for optimal connections depending on the location of the train. Not only are all the cars of a train equipped with hotspots, but so are 22 train stations. What’s more, tunnels have antennas, so your connection will not be lost.

Finally, the price can’t be beat: Cdn$3.99 for 15 minutes, then $0.30/m thereafter. If you’re planning a lot of Internet use during a trip, you can pay $8.95 for 24 hr access. Or if you’re a frequent traveller, $46 covers you for a month.

I’ve not previously read about trains offering Internet access, and I cannot access the American VIA Rail website up here, but I’m assuming it’s either already available or on its way. And not before time, considering that this mode of travel, which was once the preferred way all over the world, has fallen into disfavour for over a decade - at least in North America. It’s been a spiralling decline: less train travellers means higher fares and smaller schedules, which in turn means less train travellers, ad infinitum.

Maybe Internet access will be the feature to bring busy people back to this peaceful, scenic way of travelling long- or short-distances. Not quite global village-supporting as high-speed trains, but an important part of it nonetheless.

Links/ Sources: ComputerWorld Canada - WiFi boards VIA Rail trains (requires free registration; for IT professionals only).

Technorati Tags: myglobalcity, my global city, trains, wifi, travel