From March, free, albeit ad-supported, Wi-Fi will be available at Melbourne’s Flinders St Station, the start of a three-month trial that could see the service extended to other inner city stops. The initiative is a joint effort by Metro, Melbourne’s railway operator, GoConnect, a provider of “video infotainment and interactive advertisement” and Netbay, an ISP I can’t say I’ve heard of before.
For now, Metro’s limiting the wireless to Melbourne’s busiest station, after which it will decided whether it wants the rest of the city loop to benefit from the service. It’s part of a greater scheme, the “Future Melbourne Plan“, its goal to groom Melbourne into being “one of the top ten most liveable and sustainable cities in the world”.
The ASX press release states speeds will be “20 times faster than [sic] 3G mobile network”, but this will no doubt be subject to congestion.
Speaking with GoConnect’s executive chairman Richard Li, the Herald Sun reports the service could find its way to stations outside of the city loop, with South Yarra getting a specific mention. Advertising will be used to keep the service viable, and logging on will require you to cough up your age and gender.
Flinders St Station is about 100m from my door, so you can bet I’ll be giving this a crack once it’s available in a month’s time. Hopefully it’ll provide some respite from the seemingly endless “Wait for announcements” messages I see these days.
[ASX, via iTWire and Herald Sun]
Image: irene.
Sam D
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 12:13 PMOh yes please. I struggle with 3G while waiting for the train, even on Telstra.
The Owl
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 1:36 PMShouldn’t they be concentrating on improving the train services rather than wasting money, resources and time on other non-critical issues? I would rather be hearing less “The train to *** has been delayed and is now expected in X minutes, Metro apologises for any inconvenience caused” messages than spend the extra time waiting and wasting time on a free congested Wi-fi network.
ben
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 4:36 PMhow about getting trains running on time first…
prashy
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 6:56 PMI do fine with my 3G connection. I don’t need it. I figured most people would be complaining about the delayed train services, predictable society.
Sam Timmins
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 9:11 PMWelcome to the 6 O’Clock Same Old Monotony News:
This Just In:
Melbourne getting more stuff the rest of Oz misses out on.
Coming up: Turns out Sydney is the only other city so spoilt.
Shifty McGee
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 11:59 AMBrisbane has had free wifi at stations for at least a year now.
Sam Timmins
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 8:14 PMThis leaves 5 states. Top notch implementation!
Dell
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 5:39 PMBrillaint, now we’ll have more wankers/weirdos sitting on the steps out front.
Bryan West
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:05 PMIt’s not just a capital city thing. Here in Charters Towers (a town of 8000 people west of Townsville), we have free wifi in the main street, supported by our local e-village (www.e-village.com.au) as part of the commitment to improving community accessibility to the internet.