Irish Rail Wi-Fi

jod1983 · 24-07-2013 7:36pm #1

Hi,
Will be doing quite alot of traveling on the Cork-Dublin route in the next few weeks. To shorten my journey i was hoping to watch a few films via netflix. Does anyone know if you can stream netflix on their carriages?

Gatling · 24-07-2013 7:39pm

jod1983 wrote: »

Hi,
Will be doing quite alot of traveling on the Cork-Dublin route in the next few weeks. To shorten my journey i was hoping to watch a few films via netflix. Does anyone know if you can stream netflix on their carriages?

No they block steaming sites such as youtube and so on to try keep the system uncongested apparently ,
They have notices when you sign in to a browser ,
Personally have found the WiFi next to useless for anything but basic browsing

jod1983 · 24-07-2013 7:40pm

Thanks for that.

Gatling · 24-07-2013 7:44pm

jod1983 wrote: »

Thanks for that.

You might get some posters with solution's
We done a couple of weekend's with the kids using Irish rail and found bringing a tablet useless unless you've already downloaded movies or music to your device

robclay26 · 24-07-2013 8:39pm

Hi all,

Does the Enterprise service have the WIFI too? and power points?

24-07-2013 9:21pm

Wi-Fi, yes. Power points, no. NIR manage the Wi-Fi on the Enterprise so you're assigned a UK IP address.

n97 mini · 24-07-2013 10:57pm

Wifi on the Enterprise is really poor. For various reasons there is no coverage between Malahide and Newry, and hence while you will stay connected to the wifi you won't be able to access the internet.

In general I have found that even though I'm on 3, like IE are, that I will have coverage longer on my phone than the train will. It's almost like they didn't install the 3G antennae when installing the equipment on the train.

With your own sub watching Netflix on 3 is workable, assuming you have coverage.

robclay26 · 25-07-2013 11:26am

Like lots with this county a service sounds good on paper but in reality it's ****e

bk · 25-07-2013 3:40pm

robclay26 wrote: »

Like lots with this county a service sounds good on paper but in reality it's ****e

In fairness "mobile" broadband isn't really suited to high bandwidth video streaming.

This is down purely to physics and available wireless spectrum and is pretty much the same all over the world.

Free rail or bus wifi being limited to lower bandwidth services like email, IM, web browsing, facebook, etc. is very reasonable. Just one person using netflix/youtube on a train or bus could make it unusable for everyone else.

Nonoperational · 25-07-2013 3:42pm

robclay26 wrote: »

Like lots with this county a service sounds good on paper but in reality it's ****e

Nothing to do with this country. Wifi on public transport has been flaky in any country I've visited.

n97 mini · 25-07-2013 3:57pm

It's not really flaky on the Enterprise, it's just missing.

Fred Swanson · 25-07-2013 6:31pm

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eejoynt · 25-07-2013 6:42pm

n97 mini wrote: »

It's not really flaky on the Enterprise, it's just missing.

Quite true
We all accept that mobile wifi will not be the same as in a building
However the enterprise wi fi is uniquely awful.
Most of the time it doesn't work.
It is much worse than irish rail, dublin bus Matthews bus etc,
And what is laughingly called support is a call centre in Britain who have brought not caring to an art form

coylemj · 25-07-2013 6:51pm

News alert: trains spend a lot of the time passing through relatively sparsely populated parts of the country where 3G coverage is poor or non-existent.

Every time you look out the window and admire the green fields full of grazing cattle and sheep, you need to remind yourself that if you can't see a town or main road, there ain't going to be any network service worth talking about beyond basic GSM for voice and SMS.

You can't expect the networks to provide high speed data coverage all the way along railway lines in a country like Ireland, it makes no economic sense.

n97 mini · 25-07-2013 7:47pm

coylemj wrote: »

You can't expect the networks to provide high speed data coverage all the way along railway lines in a country like Ireland, it makes no economic sense.

I think that was an unrealistic expectation on behalf of who bought the system. i.e. the mistake is NIR's/IE's, not the punter's.

coylemj · 25-07-2013 8:23pm

n97 mini wrote: »

I think that was an unrealistic expectation on behalf of who bought the system. i.e. the mistake is NIR's/IE's, not the punter's.

No mistake on the part of the punters? Come on. You don't think that a punter who's wondering if he can watch live streaming TV on a train all the way from Dublin to Cork is being just a tad naive?

n97 mini · 25-07-2013 10:30pm

coylemj wrote: »

No mistake on the part of the punters? Come on. You don't think that a punter who's wondering if he can watch live streaming TV on a train all the way from Dublin to Cork is being just a tad naive?

high speed data coverage you said. With FREE WIFI advertising it's not unreasonable to expect it to just work.

bk · 26-07-2013 1:41am

n97 mini wrote: »

high speed data coverage you said. With FREE WIFI advertising it's not unreasonable to expect it to just work.

Anyone who understands 3g understand it is very unreasonable, in particular for a free service.

There is a reason 3g services aren't discussed on the Broadband forum and instead have their own forum called midband! Because 3g really isn't Broadband.

dowlingm · 26-07-2013 3:15am

VIA Rail also blocks streaming. They used to charge for wifi but then realised people wouldn't pay for crap but the mechanics of making it good enough to pay for (and some people will never want to pay) over hundreds of miles of network just wouldn't work.

If the government gave IE the cash to do a full deployment of GSM-R then maybe IE could carry their own data from line-adjacent transmitters on a lower priority of service channel rather than depending on the telcos, not entirely dissimilar to how the Chunnel will do it. But that cash went to the bondholders...

n97 mini · 26-07-2013 9:43am

bk wrote: »

Anyone who understands 3g understand it is very unreasonable, in particular for a free service.

It should be better than what your phone can do in terms of staying connected longer, at least that was my unrealistic expectation.

Fred Swanson · 26-07-2013 12:21pm

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loyatemu · 26-07-2013 12:28pm

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

same here, particularly on busy services as wifi doesn't perform well in crowded environments.

bk · 26-07-2013 2:04pm

n97 mini wrote: »

It should be better than what your phone can do in terms of staying connected longer, at least that was my unrealistic expectation.

It is a trade off. By having larger aerials on the roof and a connection to two or more networks, it should be able to maintain a connection to the 3G network better then a mobile phone.

On the other hand it is then sharing that one or two 3g connection out amongst numerous people on the train, so you can suffer contention there.

n97 mini · 26-07-2013 4:02pm

bk wrote: »

It is a trade off. By having larger aerials on the roof and a connection to two or more networks, it should be able to maintain a connection to the 3G network better then a mobile phone.

But is doesn't. My phone loses 3G after the train, and gets it back again before the train does. I use the train a lot and I don't bother with the wifi any more.

bk · 27-07-2013 11:19am

n97 mini wrote: »

But is doesn't. My phone loses 3G after the train, and gets it back again before the train does. I use the train a lot and I don't bother with the wifi any more.

Well if that is the case, then the IR wifi system is badly designed our has some other issue.

trellheim · 27-07-2013 12:05pm

The Cork-Dublin route is very spotty coverage south of maybe Portlaoise. I tend to get far better coverage off my own dongle but since it is usually using the same towers. However - and perhaps I'm silly - mounting a large antenna on the carriages might help ?

dowlingm · 27-07-2013 8:30pm

I suspect the train acquires signal just fine. What's holding things up is the content control stuff, depending on whether that is handled on or off train - I suspect off unless they've got really fancy routers which can handle content control modules via an expansion port. Either way that's more latency than a straight out unfiltered 3G connection.

eejoynt · 28-07-2013 12:18pm

English translation ?

n97 mini · 28-07-2013 12:22pm

dowlingm wrote: »

I suspect the train acquires signal just fine. What's holding things up is the content control stuff, depending on whether that is handled on or off train - I suspect off unless they've got really fancy routers which can handle content control modules via an expansion port. Either way that's more latency than a straight out unfiltered 3G connection.

It's all handled off train, and most of the time the problem is the train just has no connectivity. i.e. you can connect to the Wifi but the sign-on page, which is off train, never comes up.

As my phone can maintain its 3G connectivity longer than the train can I suspect that the 3G antennae on the train are not external and probably no bigger than my phone's.

monument · 28-07-2013 6:19pm

One of my biggest problems is that there seems like poorer reception between Athlone and Dublin than Athlone and Mayo!

Lots of poor coverage where there's commuter trains, and intercity from Galway, Mayo, Cork etc.

n97 mini wrote: »

But is doesn't. My phone loses 3G after the train, and gets it back again before the train does. I use the train a lot and I don't bother with the wifi any more.

Same here also on 3.

Although in a limited amount of areas the train is better (Manulla Junction comes to mind).

endacl · 28-07-2013 6:27pm

coylemj wrote: »

No mistake on the part of the punters? Come on. You don't think that a punter who's wondering if he can watch live streaming TV on a train all the way from Dublin to Cork is being just a tad naive?

I don't know....

I'm aware they block streaming sites to 'reduce congestion'. On the other hand, a couple of years ago I was on a bus from Tartu to Talinn in Estonia. Wifi on board and a flawless YouTube stream for about four hours. Most people on board a packed bus were online on a device of some description. This was on a bus, travelling through mile after mile of enormous wheatfield-lined single lane carriageway. Not a mast in sight. What do the Estonians know that Irish Rail don't?

n97 mini · 28-07-2013 7:38pm

So have we established that the implementation on IE does not seem to be up to scratch then?

The 3G router/AP as used by IE is an Icomera X6, which seems to be widely used.

markpb · 28-07-2013 7:49pm

loyatemu wrote: »

same here, particularly on busy services as wifi doesn't perform well in crowded environments.

That's patently untrue - wifi can be made to work in extremely large scale deployments. The Super Bowl this year had a wireless network that could handle 30,000 simultaneous connections. Of course, it didn't work so well when the power went out....

starlit · 31-07-2013 9:49am

Its wifi ok for general Internet usage. I say bring DVDs for your laptop!?

loyatemu · 31-07-2013 11:22am

markpb wrote: »

That's patently untrue - wifi can be made to work in extremely large scale deployments. The Super Bowl this year had a wireless network that could handle 30,000 simultaneous connections. Of course, it didn't work so well when the power went out....

Its not untrue - the more bodies on board the more signal is absorbed (and also the more devices sharing the bandwidth).

As you say it can be made work - by using more APs, different frequencies (I believe the 2.4Ghz band is better in this respect than the 5Ghz band), fancier TDM technology but I assume IE have max 1 AP per carriage (I suspect its actually less than this). I've definitely found it works better off-peak than during rush-hour.

Granolite · 31-07-2013 11:30am

Agghhh...just read a book.

Owryan · 01-08-2013 12:01am

I ve found the wifi seems to be getting worse in recent weeks on the Dublin-Waterford line at least. Today it was almost useless.

Gatling · 01-08-2013 12:29am

Dublin to kildare on Saturday 30min trip give or take couldn't bring up gmail in that 30mins seriously are they using dial up or something

Cool_CM · 02-08-2013 12:18am

Granolite wrote: »

Agghhh...just read a book.

I would, but I can't get my kindle to connect to download one

Dravokivich · 02-08-2013 2:31pm

Cool_CM wrote: »

I would, but I can't get my kindle to connect to download one

You have to listen carefully with their whispernet service!

JackieChan · 02-08-2013 7:06pm

Gatling wrote: »

Dublin to kildare on Saturday 30min trip give or take couldn't bring up gmail in that 30mins seriously are they using dial up or something

That's annoying.I use the train daily on that line and generally the service is pretty okay but there can be the odd day where there is no wifi signal at all or a very unresponsive one.

Gatling · 02-08-2013 7:10pm

JackieChan wrote: »

That's annoying.I use the train daily on that line and generally the service is pretty okay but there can be the odd day where there is no wifi signal at all or a very unresponsive one.

That weekend it was horrible on outgoing and return trips,
For further trips I've always found it at time's very slow and others you get a low signal connection , other times its actually usable

Irish Rail Wi-Fi

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