http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/ Engadget Comments for NTT Communications bringing WiFi to Japanese bullet trains in 2009 http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
I highly doubt there are many of these stretches though..]]>Dec 19th 2008 3:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 20th 2008 6:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:48AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
Sounds like a better bet than dodgy train wifi to me (although depending on where the train is going, coverage might not be great I guess). If I get a netbook, I'd consider it for sure.

Ordinary 3G pay-monthly is way too expensive at £15/month or so - but at a one-off £30 for the dongle, then just £2 each day I need to use it, that would be worth it for the odd few days a year when I spend a long time on a train or whatever.]]>Dec 19th 2008 12:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
Of course, on swedish trains they also have phone transmitters on the trains themselves so that there's always coverage, but the shinkansen seemed to lack that as well.]]>Dec 19th 2008 12:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 10:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
]]>Dec 19th 2008 11:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/ A lot of reasons. The a lot of US culture and economy is built around cars. Also, trains of all kinds make the most money when they're filled...that means that you want basically a train-load of people to go from station A to station Z and every stop in between, on the main line (big city to big city) and all the side lines (the lines that branch out into more suburban or even rural cities, towns and even villages). Europe and Asia/Japan are pretty densely populated from end to end, so such a transportation market exists. The US is actually rather sparsely populated for all it's land mass. So the farthest runs that trains like these would have to make wouldn't be all that full, and thus probably not even profitable.

And profit is another factor. The US tends to allow private companies a great deal of latitude in setting up public transportation, and thus, low-bid marketing and competition are what determine what will ultimately be economically feasible. It also often results in each city, county, state, and multi-state area courting a variety of companies which can result in incompatible systems, and ultimately a need for a lot of transfers for the customer. And people don't like that. In other countries, the government is much more heavily involved and when they use private companies they often give them large, all encompassing contracts. So you end up with less transfers and more compatibility between pass cards, tickets and such. That makes the whole thing run much more smoothly, and reach more places reliably, which means people actually USE the systems.

The last part is kind of unfortunate, but true. Europe and asia got blown to hell and back in WWII, so they had to basically rebuild their infrastructures. But, by that time, we were already in the modern word. The world had already seen the benefits of Trains, light rail, subways, and elevated trains, so they folded in an upgrade with the rebuild. The US has never had to do that en masse.

In fact the US HAS made a few forays into the high speed rail game, but they've either encountered too many expensive technical problems or haven't been profitable enough.

But with our population swelling, who knows...]]>Dec 19th 2008 11:51AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
And kudos to OddManOut on the long explanation.]]>Dec 19th 2008 12:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/They also should be getting a MagLev rail from L.A. to Las Vegas.]]>Dec 19th 2008 1:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 5:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
Japan & Europe maybe small but we don't even have rail like that on any size. The east coast is about as long as Japan why cant we build high speed rail from Boston to Richmond about 5 major cities would be on the line and its the most densly population area of the US.


"Probable a crap load less then it would in the U.S. Not saying it's imposable but it would take lots of good planning and lots of money which if you haven't notices very few people have a whole lot of right now."

Normal people arent paying for these trains and lines the governments are so the part about very few people having money right now is not a probably your just making excuses.
]]>Dec 20th 2008 10:27AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
I find Wifi on trains to be too slow to make good use of (apart from the first few minutes until everyone else gets on), at least on the Edinburgh to Kings Cross trains.]]>Dec 19th 2008 11:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
Of course, when the train is finished (sometime in the 2020s), I'm sure our brains will already be directly connected to internet satellites.]]>Dec 19th 2008 12:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 12:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 19th 2008 12:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
The technology is the same as Sweden's (see greenlight above) and location-specific ads on websites like Facebook are in Swedish. It even works in tunnels...

http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/On-Board-Our-Trains/In-your-carriage/WiFi---Internet-Facilities/]]>Dec 19th 2008 1:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
The good news was that coverage was mostly good from London to Aberdeen which meant that for the seven hour journey I could expect a decent service. Problem was that if you had a combination of going through an area where it'd disrupt the satellite connection AND the 3G signal then everything would just abruptly drop. Also, speeds were not that good, kind of like basic 256k ADSL back in the day when ISDN was king.

In the end, the journey went well and I only had one or two interruptions, once at Montrose and the other around York somewhere. Definitely a great (if horribly rushed) solution.

What I'd be very interested in finding out is how they're going to deliver this service to a route which goes through more tunnels than your average male porn actor. I'm talking about the bread & butter Tokyo - Osaka/Kyoto route. I'm expecting them to use a similar system to what T-Mobile is doing in the UK and Germany by siting WIMAX points trackside all along the route. That way you could provide more than just wireless internet to passengers, up to date train running stats, location and cheap comms to the drivers cab could be done via this way apparently. ]]>Dec 19th 2008 1:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
Baby steps I say.

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http://www.joelesler.net]]>Dec 19th 2008 4:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/
You can't beat the french for these kind of trains.. and while it's true that the US is huge, given the hassles of air transportation, a TGV-like system would really fit well on the northeast corridor for example ... (lets say, Amtrak's Acela but done well). NY to washington could be served in just over 1:15 minutes... downtown to downtown... Surely beats flying!
]]>Dec 19th 2008 7:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 20th 2008 9:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/19/ntt-communications-bringing-wifi-to-japanese-bullet-train-in-200/Dec 21st 2008 4:08AM