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Major UK train stations have turned off their wifi? Should result in slightly improved performance :-P (Actually, to be fair, some of those stations have work

Major UK train stations have turned off their wifi? Should result in slightly improved performance :-P (Actually, to be fair, some of those stations have working and viable wifi. Only some have wifi where connection simply doesn't work - and by this I mean consistently over a couple of years.)

gadders 2y ago
The underground platform wifi from mobile companies seems better than main London terminal "Free Station Wifi". On train wifi is bad every time I've tried it.
- philjohn 2y ago
  And on parts of the Northern Line (between Euston and Charring Cross) there's now even 5G down there.
  - gadders 2y ago
    Yeah. I get better cellular reception on the Jubilee Line than I do on South Eastern trains.
- matt-p 2y ago
  The issue with on train wifi is the companies see it as a pure cost centre and aren't incentivised to provide a quality product there. Some have even turned it off! The on train hardware is usually half decent but they typically go with the cheapest tender for the operation of it. This is the kind of BS you get when you have private companies run parts of your infrastructure. Imagine the productivity gain of millions of journeys where users can reliably access fast internet. In most cases stumping for a quality multi sim provider, maybe a 5G upgrade and decent bandwidth allowance and support would get you most the way to that. WCML for example already has really decent coverage on my phone doing tethering but somehow onboard wifi is unusable, despite the train having multi sim multi radio hardware and special external antennas.
ta1243 2y ago
Extremely rare I use public wifi - there's a couple of places where phone signal doesn't work and I want/need some internet (underground, planes, actually on board the trains, some cafes etc), but at major stations? It's not like they offer wifi at stations where there's no phone signal (and if they did it would be better all round for the phone companies to offer 4g service instead) What is the value proposition for wifi at stations?
- logifail 2y ago
  Visitors to the UK might be charged roaming fees by their foreign mobile provider.
- ljf 2y ago
  I'd guess there are still a subset of people with very limited data plans, or who don't have plans at all and use tablets or laptops. If you can offload an amount of those people from asking your staff questions about train times and connections and get them checking online instead, I would guess that could be a cost saving? I suppose it is also something that helps make the train more appealing than other forms of transport. If I know I can turn up 30 mins early and get some work done (or just browse the web), then that help cement the train as a nicer way to travel compared to a bus, or even a car where you cannot work at all if you are the driver.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    also tourists, which there's plenty of in London. Roaming is expensive. Especially nowadays, with Britain out of the EU and "roam like at home" policies no longer in effect.
    - timoth 2y ago
      > Especially nowadays, with Britain out of the EU and "roam like at home" policies no longer in effect. I thought they were generally still in effect. The multiple UK and non-UK networks I'm aware of still allow free roaming across UK and EU etc.
- 2y ago

gadders 2y ago

The underground platform wifi from mobile companies seems better than main London terminal "Free Station Wifi". On train wifi is bad every time I've tried it.

philjohn 2y ago
And on parts of the Northern Line (between Euston and Charring Cross) there's now even 5G down there.
- gadders 2y ago
  Yeah. I get better cellular reception on the Jubilee Line than I do on South Eastern trains.
matt-p 2y ago
The issue with on train wifi is the companies see it as a pure cost centre and aren't incentivised to provide a quality product there. Some have even turned it off! The on train hardware is usually half decent but they typically go with the cheapest tender for the operation of it. This is the kind of BS you get when you have private companies run parts of your infrastructure. Imagine the productivity gain of millions of journeys where users can reliably access fast internet. In most cases stumping for a quality multi sim provider, maybe a 5G upgrade and decent bandwidth allowance and support would get you most the way to that. WCML for example already has really decent coverage on my phone doing tethering but somehow onboard wifi is unusable, despite the train having multi sim multi radio hardware and special external antennas.

ta1243 2y ago

Extremely rare I use public wifi - there's a couple of places where phone signal doesn't work and I want/need some internet (underground, planes, actually on board the trains, some cafes etc), but at major stations? It's not like they offer wifi at stations where there's no phone signal (and if they did it would be better all round for the phone companies to offer 4g service instead) What is the value proposition for wifi at stations?

logifail 2y ago
Visitors to the UK might be charged roaming fees by their foreign mobile provider.
ljf 2y ago
I'd guess there are still a subset of people with very limited data plans, or who don't have plans at all and use tablets or laptops. If you can offload an amount of those people from asking your staff questions about train times and connections and get them checking online instead, I would guess that could be a cost saving? I suppose it is also something that helps make the train more appealing than other forms of transport. If I know I can turn up 30 mins early and get some work done (or just browse the web), then that help cement the train as a nicer way to travel compared to a bus, or even a car where you cannot work at all if you are the driver.
- miki123211 2y ago
  also tourists, which there's plenty of in London. Roaming is expensive. Especially nowadays, with Britain out of the EU and "roam like at home" policies no longer in effect.
  - timoth 2y ago
    > Especially nowadays, with Britain out of the EU and "roam like at home" policies no longer in effect. I thought they were generally still in effect. The multiple UK and non-UK networks I'm aware of still allow free roaming across UK and EU etc.
2y ago