GNER WiFi gets the thumbs up from MacLeod

Picture 5
Originally uploaded by smstextnews.

I was always a little bit suspect of WiFI on a train. Would it actually work or would it be a pile of rubbish? If I can’t get a reliable GPRS signal when moving at 10 miles an hour, how can a train deliver WiFi speeds at upwards of 70, 80mph?

Well. They do. It works. Although to get the same in my Range Rover, I’d probably have to strap a 10ft wide satellite to the roof.

I asked my friend Tom last week to give me a viewpoint on the GNER service. He regularly travels all over the place ripping cash out the NHS and various other utility companies telling them, broadly speaking, things they already know and, more than likely, don’t quite want to act upon. I’ve often sent Tom an instant message and found he was on a GNER train somewhere.

Tom’s viewpoint was succinct:

It’s good enough for email

… and it is. It’s a bit slow in places but, generally speaking, across three hours on Tuesday and another three hours today, it has given me consistent service. I’d liken it to the equivalent of a 64 or 128k iSDN connection. At 70mph, that’s rather swish.

Plus, on the WiFi login page, you get to see little airline style you-are-here maps that continually update. Nice.