Irish Rail Wi-Fi

wicklowwonder

Hope this is the right area to post this. The wifi on Irish rail is so frustrating. Fleetconnect run the service but surely Irish rail see the frustration with customers. It rarely works and when it does it is extremely slow. I understand you are on a train but other countries seem to get it right.

I think they should either get it working properly or scrap it totally.

How is the connectIon brought to the train? Is it via satellite?

Gone West

wicklowwonder wrote: »

I think they should either get it working properly or scrap it totally.

How is the connectIon brought to the train? Is it via satellite?

Scrapping it totally is an asinine remark.
The connection is via 3g. With the rollout of 4g nationwide, fleetconnect can certainly do better very soon.

I find that it works for about 90% of the journey, but can be a bit slow starting up after the train has been "rebooted". There is a blackhole in coverage between Portarlington & Tullamore but apart from that coverage between Athlone & Heuston is OK

wicklowwonder

Regularly use the Dublin Belfast route and the wifi is constantly jumping in and out of service or ridiculously slow that pages time out while loading. I used the Cork - Dublin line yesterday and the speed was ridiculously slow also. Maybe with 4g roll out it will improve but at the moment it is very frustrating and I hear a lot of customers moaning about it.

wicklowwonder

wicklowwonder wrote: »

Regularly use the Dublin Belfast route and the wifi is constantly jumping in and out of service or ridiculously slow that pages time out while loading. I used the Cork - Dublin line yesterday and the speed was ridiculously slow also. Maybe with 4g roll out it will improve but at the moment it is very frustrating and I hear a lot of customers moaning about it.

If your home wifi is fibre, then the rail wifi will never be close to the performance. It seems OK for me due to the fact that I'm still on adsl at home. I'll be passing the black hole in about 30 mins though.

edit: passed through this morning without interruption!

foggy_lad

Some areas along the railway network are not covered well by mobile operators because of low population density! This is rarely an issue in "other" countries where even rural trains are still running through areas with high population density comparable to Irish rural figures.

goingnowhere

foggy_lad wrote: »

Some areas along the railway network are not covered well by mobile operators because of low population density! This is rarely an issue in "other" countries where even rural trains are still running through areas with high population density comparable to Irish rural figures.

True, but name a country where all the trains have WiFi other than Ireland

loyatemu

It's useless on the Dart:

• Often the Wifi signal itself is unavailable
• Even when you do get connected the login page can be unavailable or simply keeps asking you to re-login
• Even when you are logged in, on busy trains it's so slow as to be unusable.
• It doesn't work at all on about half the southside Dart (Greystones-Bray & Killiney - Blackrock) because of tunnels/cuttings.

GLaDOS

I find it's usually ok on the Maynooth line, though it usually cuts out between Maynooth and Leixslip, as does phone signal. It does struggle when the train is busy though.

lucernarian

foggy_lad wrote: »

Some areas along the railway network are not covered well by mobile operators because of low population density! This is rarely an issue in "other" countries where even rural trains are still running through areas with high population density comparable to Irish rural figures.

I wonder about this... I find it varies widely from country to country, with rural mobile phone coverage (3G or otherwise) to be excellent in Poland, usually good in Germany, very variable in Ireland and generally poorer in the UK.

The units that the trains have would have better antennae than a user mobile phone would have and should maintain a signal better but that won't change that the local mobile cell is overloaded or that there are too many users using it on the train. I find it rarely works on any busy commuter train between Drogheda and Dublin, or on the Enterprise when either ICRs or the normal De Dietrich stock are being used. It's directly related to the amount of people on the train. Anyway, I always just turn on tethering and use my ample data allowance on my phone. Who do Icomera use for mobile phone signal? When three's network (for original three customers) went down a couple of months ago, Fleetconnect on bus eireann was knocked out but Irishrail wifi remained online. I managed to discover this in Colbert station, which I was passing through at the time.

Victor

I think one needs to appreciate a few things:
* One is it the middle of a bog in Offaly / field in Tipperary / narrow valley in Wicklow.
* Mobile speeds will never compete with fixed line speed.
* Mobile signals will be hit or miss when it comes to tunnels and cuttings.
* Wi-Fi is there for light browsing and emails. Not streaming, downloads or database maintenance.
* Population density directly affects what operators are willing to invest in things like Wi-Fi. the number of mobile phone masts is proportional to population. That means in low density areas there are few antennae.

Country (or dependent territory) Area (km²) Population Density
(pop./km²)
Monaco 2 36,950 18,475
Gibraltar (UK) 7 29,752 4,250
Vatican City 0 800 1,818
Jersey (UK) 116 97,857 844
Guernsey (UK) 78 62,431 800
San Marino 61 32,382 531
Netherlands 41,526 16,904,961 407
Belgium 30,528 11,237,963 368
United Kingdom 242,910 64,105,700 262
Liechtenstein 160 36,842 230
Germany 357,123 80,781,000 226
Luxembourg 2,586 537,000 208
Italy 301,308 60,762,320 202
Switzerland 41,285 8,183,800 198
Kosovo 10,910 1,815,606 166
Andorra 464 76,246 164
Isle of Man (UK) 572 84,497 148
Cyprus 5,896 862,000 146
Czech Republic 78,867 10,517,400 133
Denmark 43,098 5,639,719 131
Poland 312,685 38,496,000 123
France 543,965 64,149,000 118
Portugal 92,090 10,562,178 115
Slovakia 49,036 5,410,728 110
Azerbaijan 86,600 9,477,100 109
Hungary 93,029 9,879,000 106
Austria 83,879 8,572,895 102
Slovenia 20,273 2,065,877 102
Armenia 29,743 3,024,100 102
Turkey 783,562 77,695,904 101
Albania 28,703 2,821,977 98
Spain 503,783 46,609,700 93
Serbia 77,474 7,146,759 92
Northern Cyprus 3,355 294,906 88
Greece 131,957 11,123,034 84
Romania 238,391 20,121,641 84
Macedonia 25,713 2,062,294 80
Croatia 56,542 4,290,612 76
Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,209 3,839,737 75
Ukraine 603,628 45,377,581 75
Bulgaria 111,002 7,282,041 66
Ireland 70,273 4,585,400 65
Georgia 69,700 4,490,500 64
Belarus 207,600 9,469,200 46
Montenegro 13,812 620,029 45
Lithuania 65,300 2,944,459 45
Faroe Islands (Denmark) 1,399 48,244 34
Latvia 64,562 2,005,200 31
Estonia 43,432 1,311,870 30
Åland Islands (Finland) 1,552 28,502 18
Finland 338,424 5,460,459 18
Russia 17,075,400 143,700,000 8
Iceland 102,800 329,100 3

loyatemu

Nonetheless - Irish Rail advertises the service, there is a reasonable expectation that it will work.

Access to the signal onboard the train, and issues with login are within the control of Fleetconnect. They also state on the login page that they are "working with their network partners" to improve coverage, suggesting that there is some form of collaboration between IE, FC and the 3G companies to provide the service. It is possible to provide a mobile signal in a cutting or even in a tunnel.

How does it compare with WiFi on intercity buses? or on Dublin Bus?

Geniass

Deleted User wrote: »

I find that it works for about 90% of the journey

Depends on your journey. Between Dublin and Limerick/Cork it's about 50% coverage if you have a laptop.

If you have a smartphone it doesn't even connect, it must somehow give priority to PCs (so it always seemed to me).

I used to travel up/down to Dublin at least once a week for a year and it was an exercise in futility.

Victor

loyatemu wrote: »

It is possible to provide a mobile signal in a cutting or even in a tunnel.

One has to put in extra antennae / mast, that have a view in / from within.

Some Metros have good mobile phone coverage.

L1011

Copenhagens underground has 3g coverage but I suspect it wasn't cheap to install

mass_debater

This is so apt for this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E

Carawaystick

Victor wrote: »

I think one needs to appreciate a few things:
* One is it the middle of a bog in Offaly / field in Tipperary / narrow valley in Wicklow.
* Mobile speeds will never compete with fixed line speed.

Country (or dependent territory) Area (km²) Population Density
(pop./km²)
Vatican City 0 800 1,818

Divide by zero issue there....



Anyway there's probably a contention ratio issue here, where users using 3g are eating into the 3g BW available for the train.
Dublin bus consistently provided lower throughput on wifi in their busses in Dublin city centre compared to vodafone's 3g internet access. Voda also provide 3g through the m50 tunnel.

Mint Sauce

Have used the service on the Sligo to Dublin service. Fine for browsing, although a few places were the signal was very weak, or none existant. Once past Maynooth service was very poor, obviously due to extra numbers trying to connect to 3G network.

goingnowhere wrote: »

True, but name a country where all the trains have WiFi other than Ireland

Wifi through Virgin Media on Virgin Trains in Britain, and on the deep tunnel stations on the London Underground. Unfortunately neither free (not sure to virgin customers), but did use the service on the underground when it first came out, and fiund it very good. I beleive they are now working on providing a service between stations.

wicklowwonder

I understand it will be slower than Fibre Broadband but when the page is timing out it is taking so long to load then there is an issue surely. It would be a great service if it worked but it just doesn't work often enough to be reliable and to guarantee you will be reachable via email if you want to work on the train etc.

lucernarian

Victor wrote: »

* Population density directly affects what operators are willing to invest in things like Wi-Fi. the number of mobile phone masts is proportional to population. That means in low density areas there are few antennae.

"The number of mobile phone masts is proportional to population".... That relationship won't be the same from country to country for all sorts of reasons.

For instance, transport corridors might have few nearby population centres but there might still be regular, transient usage from passers-by. Also, in the case of the UK, some "not-spots" on the A-routes of their road network had subsidised phone masts installed (very few admittedly). Ireland had the so-called NBS which gave Hutchinson Three a subsidy for 3G coverage in the more isolated parts of the country with no DSL availability. Different countries have subsidies targeted at different market failures for mobile telephony infrastructure.

I find my service directly from three to be much more reliable than Irish Rail's wifi on board trains. This suggests any or all of: too many users using their wifi; the access points aren't really up to scratch; the provider's proxy infrastructure is inadequate. Sometimes I've been on very quiet trains and there have been problems too...

Gone West

lucernarian wrote: »

"The number of mobile phone masts is proportional to population".... That relationship won't be the same from country to country for all sorts of reasons.

For instance, transport corridors might have few nearby population centres but there might still be regular, transient usage from passers-by. Also, in the case of the UK, some "not-spots" on the A-routes of their road network had subsidised phone masts installed (very few admittedly). Ireland had the so-called NBS which gave Hutchinson Three a subsidy for 3G coverage in the more isolated parts of the country with no DSL availability. Different countries have subsidies targeted at different market failures for mobile telephony infrastructure.

I find my service directly from three to be much more reliable than Irish Rail's wifi on board trains. This suggests any or all of: too many users using their wifi; the access points aren't really up to scratch; the provider's proxy infrastructure is inadequate. Sometimes I've been on very quiet trains and there have been problems too...

He said proportional, not directly proportional.
Also, you should look at the UK pop density versus the Irish pop density before making that comparison.

lucernarian

Fuzzy wrote: »

He said proportional, not directly proportional.
Also, you should look at the UK pop density versus the Irish pop density before making that comparison.

I am actually able to read that for myself already? And why would I have to look at those figures again? They don't look any different to the first time I saw them. I don't know what sort of hair-splitting that is supposed to be.

Victor did say that "the number of mobile phone masts is proportional to population." Have a look at my post, you'd see that I am trying to say that comparisons on a country-wide level are not very meaningful and even in the likes of NBS areas in this country, the higher number of UMTS masts flatly contradicts this relationship.

Population density on a national level really doesn't tell us anything about rural mobile phone "not-spots". Mobile phone sectors are far, far smaller than the readily-available regional measures of population density. It would be more informative to compare regions of equal density, say 10 to 30 people per sq km across Europe and see, of those regions, which countries have the most base stations per sq km in those regions. Sadly I don't know of a straightforward way to do that. And this thread doesn't really need this level of investigation? There's certainly evidence to me that Irish Rail's own WiFi provider equipment may not be up to scratch but then I'd rather their money be spent on extra trains etc.

BeardySi

The wi-fi relies on mobile internet - have you tried accessing mobile internet outside of major trunk routes and towns? It's non-existent! Basic phone signal is poor enough in many rural places...

foggy_lad

lucernarian wrote: »

I wonder about this... I find it varies widely from country to country, with rural mobile phone coverage (3G or otherwise) to be excellent in Poland, usually good in Germany, very variable in Ireland and generally poorer in the UK.

All these places will have better coverage in rural areas because of their higher population density in those areas and because their rail lines are better laid out to service areas of higher population density.

The units that the trains have would have better antennae than a user mobile phone would have and should maintain a signal better but that won't change that the local mobile cell is overloaded or that there are too many users using it on the train. I find it rarely works on any busy commuter train between Drogheda and Dublin, or on the Enterprise when either ICRs or the normal De Dietrich stock are being used. It's directly related to the amount of people on the train. Anyway, I always just turn on tethering and use my ample data allowance on my phone. Who do Icomera use for mobile phone signal? When three's network (for original three customers) went down a couple of months ago, Fleetconnect on bus eireann was knocked out but Irishrail wifi remained online. I managed to discover this in Colbert station, which I was passing through at the time.

Station Wi-Fi is provided by Eircom via the stations DSL/Fibre connection. afaik the wifi on vehicles is provided by more than one network and is supposed to switch between the best network as it passes between masts.

loyatemu wrote: »

Nonetheless - Irish Rail advertises the service, there is a reasonable expectation that it will work.

Thousands of companies advertise Sun holidays but that is the only thing they can not guarantee about the holiday!

Irish rail are not responsible for any mobile operators level of coverage and can/will never guarantee any service level for their Wi-Fi.

Access to the signal onboard the train, and issues with login are within the control of Fleetconnect. They also state on the login page that they are "working with their network partners" to improve coverage, suggesting that there is some form of collaboration between IE, FC and the 3G companies to provide the service. It is possible to provide a mobile signal in a cutting or even in a tunnel.

How does it compare with WiFi on intercity buses? or on Dublin Bus?

Fleet connect are only responsible for the equipment on the vehicles, they can not magic up a signal where there is none!

lucernarian

foggy_lad wrote: »

All these places will have better coverage in rural areas because of their higher population density in those areas and because their rail lines are better laid out to service areas of higher population density.

I was simply reporting my personal experiences. Such is the dark art of radio wave propagation that somebody else might have diametrically opposite experiences to mine in similar locations. You have no evidence to show that A) they DO have better coverage in rural areas.. Better than Ireland I presume? You have no evidence to show that the rural areas of these countries have higher population densities than rural areas of e.g. Ireland.

You can't make sweeping national generalisations about specific cases, or prove anything indeed from a misuse of statistics. A country like the UK has a scheme to pay for "not-spots" in rural areas as presumably it's a political issue where many key trunk routes don't actually enjoy continuous mobile coverage. It doesn't matter how many times greater the national population density is than Ireland... it doesn't mean that there aren't also plenty of areas that have no coverage. The stations serve areas of greater population density but there's nothing to show that the areas in between UK urban centres have any greater population densities OR mobile base stations than equivalent-distance inter-city routes in Ireland.

For what it's worth, I think rural phone coverage in Ireland is much better than in the UK, partly due to my own experience and partly due to the greater govt. intervention in Ireland that has ended up providing 3G coverage to many of the more sparsely populated parts of Ireland - as a side effect!

Station Wi-Fi is provided by Eircom via the stations DSL/Fibre connection. afaik the wifi on vehicles is provided by more than one network and is supposed to switch between the best network as it passes between masts.

It's supposed to be, but I couldn't find it using my phone or laptop's wifi at a bench not too far from the platform. And I'll put it this way, I couldn't pick up any wifi in the station when the last train left at some time near 9pm. The only conclusion that could be made from that time was that Irish Rail don't at least exclusively use three and I found no evidence of working station wifi in Limerick, again at that time on a Friday evening.

Red Alert

On the whole the Irish Rail WiFi is not bad, and certainly is better than the system used by Translink on the Enterprise. For all Irish rail's faults, it's a pity they don't run the Enterprise with only track access from Translink.

wicklowwonder

Red Alert wrote: »

On the whole the Irish Rail WiFi is not bad, and certainly is better than the system used by Translink on the Enterprise. For all Irish rail's faults, it's a pity they don't run the Enterprise with only track access from Translink.

Are they different services? I thought Irish Rail ran both as regularly there is an Irish Rail train on the route. Always seems to be an Irish Rail train on the 7.30am run, well over the last few months. I use the Enterprise route a lot and the wifi is ridiculous. That is where most of my frustrations come from.

Victor

There is a slightly complicated arrangement between the two companies.

As I understand it:
* The locomotives and the carriages are jointly owned.
* NIR owns the guards vans outright, having bought them from Irish Rail.
* NIR maintains the carriages (and presumably the guards vans).
* Irish Rail maintains the locomotives
* Each company provides a number of crews.
* Irish Rail own the catering operation, but it is based in Belfast.

Therefore, all the Wi-Fi on enterprise is run by NIR (who will in turn, use a sub-contractor).

foggy_lad

lucernarian wrote: »

I was simply reporting my personal experiences. Such is the dark art of radio wave propagation that somebody else might have diametrically opposite experiences to mine in similar locations. You have no evidence to show that A) they DO have better coverage in rural areas.. Better than Ireland I presume? You have no evidence to show that the rural areas of these countries have higher population densities than rural areas of e.g. Ireland.

You can't make sweeping national generalisations about specific cases, or prove anything indeed from a misuse of statistics. A country like the UK has a scheme to pay for "not-spots" in rural areas as presumably it's a political issue where many key trunk routes don't actually enjoy continuous mobile coverage. It doesn't matter how many times greater the national population density is than Ireland... it doesn't mean that there aren't also plenty of areas that have no coverage. The stations serve areas of greater population density but there's nothing to show that the areas in between UK urban centres have any greater population densities OR mobile base stations than equivalent-distance inter-city routes in Ireland.

For what it's worth, I think rural phone coverage in Ireland is much better than in the UK, partly due to my own experience and partly due to the greater govt. intervention in Ireland that has ended up providing 3G coverage to many of the more sparsely populated parts of Ireland - as a side effect!


It's supposed to be, but I couldn't find it using my phone or laptop's wifi at a bench not too far from the platform. And I'll put it this way, I couldn't pick up any wifi in the station when the last train left at some time near 9pm. The only conclusion that could be made from that time was that Irish Rail don't at least exclusively use three and I found no evidence of working station wifi in Limerick, again at that time on a Friday evening.

mobile internet is reliant and carried by the mobile signal but is only as strong as the network wants it in each area of coverage, they will not have excellent mobile internet covering the bog as it is far more expensive a service to provide than calls or texts. while people on a train have great mobile coverage the level of the mobile internet service can be awful.

lucernarian

foggy_lad wrote: »

mobile internet is reliant and carried by the mobile signal but is only as strong as the network wants it in each area of coverage, they will not have excellent mobile internet covering the bog as it is far more expensive a service to provide than calls or texts. while people on a train have great mobile coverage the level of the mobile internet service can be awful.

That doesn't really address the bulk of points I raised. The statistics posted are not really relevant to this as a comparison of how networks behave in rural areas from locality to locality and even from country to country. I am more than able to appreciate the difference between my phone connecting to a UMTS and a GSM network, and so are most people nowadays when they use their phone to surf the net using just GPRS and EDGE. You're ignoring the effects of congestion even with a strong signal in a very built-up area, versus the isolated hilltop with a mast 1km from a train line. No prize for guessing which works better.

You don't fully understand how mobile providers work in this way, namely that they put up stations wherever they are able to that can cover a particular otherwise-problematic spot. Undoubtedly they don't have to provide for areas they don't see as being uneconomical. In the case of trains passing through rural areas, they *could* offer good "coverage" with bad internet service but in such low-congestion areas, this is a very unlikely scenario and in any case, how does your point work for laptops connected to a phone via tethering vs the Irish Rail wifi, like in my case? Phone and text capabilities didn't come into my points here. It's all about the data.

beauf

I use the docklands or Maynooth line. I think it slow. But the worse problem is the log in. It insists on you logging in but doesn't remember you. Entirely pointless. Takes ages to connect also. I've stopped using it and pay for my own data instead.

If you are doing short hops it means the WiFi is unusable. I know of no other WiFi that has such a pointless logon.

beauf

beauf wrote: »

I use the docklands or Maynooth line. I think it slow. But the worse problem is the log in. It insists on you logging in but doesn't remember you. Entirely pointless. Takes ages to connect also. I've stopped using it and pay for my own data instead.

If you are doing short hops it means the WiFi is unusable. I know of no other WiFi that has such a pointless logon.

The login might be required to allow the system to track your connection as the train moves between fixed sites, if the connection wasn't logged, it would drop every time you moved from one (fixed) access point to the next.

beauf

On some trains it used to allow you not to login. Now it requires you to login on all trains. If this was 10yrs ago I might understand. But in 2015 you can track devices without people logging in and/or logging back in everytime the connection drops.

loyatemu

I find it does remember me, so generally I don't have to type my email address in each time, but often it won't login at all, it just keeps flashing up the "Logging in" message.

I've recently moved my phone contract to 3, and have unlimited data. This works much more reliably and faster than the Dart WiFi, so no more WiFi for me...

beauf

beauf wrote: »

On some trains it used to allow you not to login. Now it requires you to login on all trains. If this was 10yrs ago I might understand. But in 2015 you can track devices without people logging in and/or logging back in everytime the connection drops.

I ticked the "remember me" box, it never asks for my email address. I just click the connect bar.

GLaDOS

Pretty much always remembers me.

beauf

Any of you on Windows Phone? Maybe I'll try it with an old Android phone next week.

kc56

Another issues is the number of users on the train. The mobile connection is shared among all the users; the more users, the slower the connection.

Very noticeable difference between a full intercity and a partial load commuter.

Poor connectivity in the 'gullet' and most of the way to Inchicore from Heuston

I once used a laptop with Citrix on a very empty Tralee-Dublin and it was usable most of the time with only a few drops outs.

loyatemu

kc56 wrote: »

Another issues is the number of users on the train. The mobile connection is shared among all the users; the more users, the slower the connection.

There are 2 pinch points on a busy train - access to the WiFi access point on the train, and then bandwidth on the 3G uplink.

I think you are invariably better off using your own phone's 3G as even if you're on the same network that the onboard wifi is using, at least you are skipping the bottleneck at the access point.

Also if the 3G network is implementing some form of QOS then your phone will be treated as 1 user, while the entire train will also be treated as 1 user (this is speculation on my part, I'm not an expert in mobile data).

loyatemu

loyatemu wrote: »

There are 2 pinch points on a busy train - access to the WiFi access point on the train, and then bandwidth on the 3G uplink.

I think you are invariably better off using your own phone's 3G as even if you're on the same network that the onboard wifi is using, at least you are skipping the bottleneck at the access point.

Also if the 3G network is implementing some form of QOS then your phone will be treated as 1 user, while the entire train will also be treated as 1 user (this is speculation on my part, I'm not an expert in mobile data).

I expect that bandwidth to the train AP will be many multiples of that allocated to an individual user.

loyatemu

Deleted User wrote: »

I expect that bandwidth to the train AP will be many multiples of that allocated to an individual user.

Even if it is there could be 100 users on the WiFi...

Anyway, in my experience, using 3G is more reliable than using the onboard WiFi - YMMV.

loyatemu

loyatemu wrote: »

Even if it is there could be 100 users on the WiFi...

Anyway, in my experience, using 3G is more reliable than using the onboard WiFi - YMMV.

That's why they blocked streaming sites, 100+ users over a link that is probably less than 50mb/s streaming video would kill it!

lucernarian

foggy_lad wrote: »

mobile internet is reliant and carried by the mobile signal but is only as strong as the network wants it in each area of coverage, they will not have excellent mobile internet covering the bog as it is far more expensive a service to provide than calls or texts. while people on a train have great mobile coverage the level of the mobile internet service can be awful.

Any more response to this? The picture is not quite as black-and-white as that, with many isolated parts of Ireland enjoying better UMTS coverage than similar areas in other European countries for a few different reasons. The prevailing attitude on the thread seems to be that mobile coverage is the single biggest factor in Irish Rail's WiFi performance. In reality, especially on the line between Dundalk and Dublin, my phone's tethering far outperforms Irish Rail's WiFi except on near-empty trains.

Deleted User wrote:

I expect that bandwidth to the train AP will be many multiples of that allocated to an individual user.

There's nothing in the 3GPP specs that allow for this level of Quality of Service at the radio interface level. All normal packet data gets lumped together at a lower priority than voice and video calling. http://neweb.dit.upm.es/~mac/publications/2002/ovua02-utran.pdf

I don't know the details, but I suspect that the backhaul links used for the wifi system uses a different protocol to that of the end subscribers.

lucernarian

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know the details, but I suspect that the backhaul links used for the wifi system uses a different protocol to that of the end subscribers.

They all have to use the same GSM/UMTS and perhaps LTE networks that we use. There's no protocol currently being used here on a nationwide basis here that allows for mobile roaming (from one cell to the next) except for some satellite tech which would cover the country from the one "cell". EVen if they could afford that, the latency on Irish Rail wifi is much faster than satellite. Earlier in the thread, it was reported that Irish Rail WiFi use multiple networks.

Irish Rail don't even use GSM-R for communications and signalling.

kc56

loyatemu wrote: »

Also if the 3G network is implementing some form of QOS then your phone will be treated as 1 user, while the entire train will also be treated as 1 user (this is speculation on my part, I'm not an expert in mobile data).

The technology used, Icomera X6, supports multiple SIMs and continuous WiFi so that switching between cells/operators is invisible to the user. Don't know how many SIMs IE use but in principal they could have a Vodafone, O2, Meteor and 3 on board. Since the antennae are outdoors, they should also have better connectivity than a phone inside. What is not clear if there is one base unit per train or per carriage. Obviously if it's per train, 3-car trains have an advantage over longer sets.

goingnowhere

Its one unit per trainset

So a 2 coach DART has 1 unit fitted (83xx), 4 coach (85x even number), a Mk4 train set has 1 (should be in the DVT), 22k its in the type A coach

Enterprise trains have Nomad digital equipment

Red Alert

beauf wrote: »

On some trains it used to allow you not to login. Now it requires you to login on all trains. If this was 10yrs ago I might understand. But in 2015 you can track devices without people logging in and/or logging back in everytime the connection drops.

The "login" functionality has nothing to do with roaming between masts or anything like that. In fact, it's not necessary at all since there's no charge for the service. It's just a technology known as "captive portal" that is capable of doing things like displaying a "welcome page" or T&Cs. From a network perspective it's unnecessary, and from a user's perspective it's just annoying.