One of the country’s most iconic train stations, Circular Quay in Sydney, has received a geeky bonus today with the launch of a three month trial of free Wi-Fi for commuters. But why is it only a trial, Cityrail?
The free Wi-Fi trial will allow commuters to get online for free for two 20 minute sessions a day per device with a 50MB download limit, which means this isn’t a gateway to update iTunes on the cheap. Instead, it’s for checking emails and a little bit of web browsing – just don’t try and watch a video.
The question now is why Cityrail is only considering this as a three-month trial. They’ve already had 40,000 customers connect to the free Wi-Fi on the Manly ferry since June, which should be enough evidence that people want this kind of service. They should be rolling it out across every station on the Cityrail network, although given that they can’t even get their timetabling right, that’s probably too much to ask…
[Railcorp (PDF)]
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Steve
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 3:38 PMI myself commute for over 3 hours a day on CityRail – not too fussed with the timetable, they’re reliable enough for me, but seriously – want to boost patrinage? Put the Wi-Fi on the TRAINS!
I stand at a station for 10 mins in the morning, and use that time to check emails with my own data plan. But with reception between Gosford and the city patchy at best, a cabin-based wireless network would be ‘that’ much useful..
The Gremlin
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 4:18 PMRight on! WiFi on the trains would be an absolute killer. Not that I would expect that from CityRail anytime soon. We can dream though.
Rob G
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 10:25 PM+1
Steve
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 5:08 PMWiFi on the trains would be a god send for all those dodgy spots.
An even better upside – should keep half the annoying fwits from talking with half the world on their phones in the loudest of voices!
sonya
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 11:02 PMmicrowaves from the microwave WiFi transmitter are very strong compared to brain activity.
Since the beginning of evolution the earth has been void of hf radiation such as x rays and microwaves its only in last few decades thes artificial man made radiation are being used
They will cause biological hell
The commuters are being used as guinea pigs
Will
Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 4:47 PMmost commuters i’ve seen deserve it.