Enterprise Wi-Fi

hawkwind23

hello,
can anyone shine some light on whats causing the delay with the wifi service?
i asked your woman who talks too much on the train and she blamed Irish Rail stating they were broke and that Translink was all ready to go.
basically that its irish rails fault as they have no money.
i doubt very much that this is the cause.
i suspect wrangling between the north/south arguing about whos responsible for paying etc.

it does annoy me sometimes as all the other services in the south and north have WiFi.

does anyone know why its not running yet and what exactly is causing the delay and when it should be operational.

i would ask translink but when ive asked in the past i was "assured" it would be operational in Sept then when it wasnt i was "assured" it would be October.

maybe i should specify a year or a century?

foggy_lad

hawkwind23 wrote: »

hello,
can anyone shine some light on whats causing the delay with the wifi service?
i asked your woman who talks too much on the train and she blamed Irish Rail stating they were broke and that Translink was all ready to go.
basically that its irish rails fault as they have no money.
i doubt very much that this is the cause.
i suspect wrangling between the north/south arguing about whos responsible for paying etc.

it does annoy me sometimes as all the other services in the south and north have WiFi.

does anyone know why its not running yet and what exactly is causing the delay and when it should be operational.

i would ask translink but when ive asked in the past i was "assured" it would be operational in Sept then when it wasnt i was "assured" it would be October.

maybe i should specify a year or a century?

Irish Rail should just fit the equipment as they have done on all their other trains and only provide the WiFi as far as the border saying that the other crowd are too tight to spend a few pounds on it!

It could be a technical issue; from my experience even the Bus Éireann Wi-Fi was rough north of the border. It seemed like it was only using GPRS or something.

thisisadamh

Trust me you are not missing much, the wifi on the trains are borderline useful. Takes 3 mins to load a page sometimes.

The delays for the enterprise service is probably due to moving from Irish phone networks to UK phone networks.

foggy_lad

Karsini wrote: »

It could be a technical issue; from my experience even the Bus Éireann Wi-Fi was rough north of the border. It seemed like it was only using GPRS or something.

Maybe if they switch to UK networks for the mobile service it should be ok rather than relying on Irish sim cards roaming on UK networks

hawkwind23

I reckon they have a load of sims, for both north and south networks.
I agree with the post above, stick whatever is working to the border, at least we will know who is slacking.
Service between the two capitals of ireland and no wifi is a poor show.

foggy_lad

hawkwind23 wrote: »

I reckon they have a load of sims, for both north and south networks.
I agree with the post above, stick whatever is working to the border, at least we will know who is slacking.
Service between the two capitals of ireland and no wifi is a poor show.

When we consider it is market as a business train it is surprising it has not had WiFi or power sockets for so long. But this is Ireland where business is not really about being able to work on the train but more about the wheeling and dealing that goes on in the beer tent at the Galway races.

dowlingm

Rather than patch-refitting bits and pieces into the stock, I'd be more worried about IE and NIR providing the shekels for the scheduled mid-life update which should include refurbishing the cabins with modern expectations such as conventional and perhaps USB power ports along with other improvements being seen on other systems like LED lighting.

hawkwind23

anyone any information?

shamwari

Cross border roaming shouldn't be especially difficult. 3 of the 4 networks in the Republic have a UK based counterpart, so it should (and indeed is) possible for one of these to provide a seemless cross border service. What would affect service quality more is the available bandwidth and contention. If everyone onboard connects with a mobile / iPad / Laptop then I suspect things will probably dry up fairly quick...

My own experiences of WiFi on 22/29k sets has been fairly ok south of Drogheda till around Malahide. The various cuttings through which the line then passes makes the service a bit hit-n-miss from there to Connolly. Hard to be critical of this when mobile coverage on a few networks are similarly affected in these locations.

hawkwind23

i have no idea how these things work.
but i would imagine that translink and irish rail stick both their sims in the train and they pick up each others signal around the border and work as they work on every other train.
i dont think anyone is expecting lightening fast broadband but the ability to check an email surely is essential.
i cant do it on my phone as the roaming charges are crazy.

i suspect this is stupid wrangling over costs or responsibility by the two companies and reflects badly on the island as a whole.
its become more cringeworthy when both have full wifi facilities on all the other services.

Carawaystick

I know on the M1 north of Drogheda the 3G sevice is poor, and that's not a million miles fron the tracks so maybe the lack of coverage is the issue

Jamie2k9

As NIR look after the coaches and IE do the loco it would be NIR job to fit the Wifi and its also a different company than Fleet Connect so most likely the company will be based in the NI.

hawkwind23

thanks for the replies ,
I don't feel connectivity is an issue , most services have blackouts. if they have the services on the train that's all that matters , a few areas of no signal isn't irish rails fault and not much can be done about that.

that's a valid point on the locos and carriages , I would also now consider that NIR are therefore responsible for installing the Wi-Fi.
ill write to them and see if they can give a reason.

lucernarian

Carawaystick wrote: »

I know on the M1 north of Drogheda the 3G sevice is poor, and that's not a million miles fron the tracks so maybe the lack of coverage is the issue

Because of topography there, the mobile sites that serve the railway line are completely different to the ones covering the motorway. There are substantial hills between the M1 and the railway line until about Dunleer.

Though going on coverage maps from operators, the part of the railway line from about one km north of Drogheda to Dunleer (especially through Grangebellew where the line is much lower than the surrounding countryside) has rather poor coverage simply from a lack of mobile sites.

Regarding the north of Malahide, there needs to be more mobile sites provided nearby also. Irish Rail should look into providing space for miniature cell sites which wouldn't need intrusive masts or transmitting equipment.

hawkwind23

no reply from translink.

a statement on their twitter account claims that "WiFi should be on the enterprise by early December"

I doubt it myself!

Jamie2k9

A little off topic but just saw a few comments on IR's FB page that the Entreprise could be scrapped (rumour only), was due to go to France this year for refurb. IR said they won't be scrapped but do need a refurb. Anyone know more?

thisisadamh

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

A little off topic but just saw a few comments on IR's FB page that the Entreprise could be scrapped (rumour only), was due to go to France this year for refurb. IR said they won't be scrapped but do need a refurb. Anyone know more?

I really like the enterprise carriages the way they are!

hawkwind23

carriages are fine , but they do lack power points etc so i can see why they feel they need updated.
what does need changed is the bar area!
why cant they have a comfortable seating area in the bar? one of the pleasures of train travel is meeting people , not much chance of that in the current bar, designed to keep people out and a waste of space.
1st class carriages are great , only ever sat there once but very comfortable.