You know, one of the things I’m always thinking about when trapped under London’s concrete jungle is “Why the hell can’t I browse the interwebs”. Ok, no it isn’t. Hell, I’ve never even left the county — U.S. But that doesn’t matter. I’m a nerd at heart and can surely appreciate the open web being gifted upon a new geographical region of this fine planet.
In this case, it’s the tube, several feet below London. It will be here at the Charing Cross — specifically Northern and Bakerloo line platforms — where BT Openzone-powered WiFi will be launched on November 1st, blanketing the station, ticket booths, and platform with wireless waves of joy.
For now, it’s a trial to see exactly how Londoners adopt the service. Another shortfall is that it won’t cover any part of the actual train path, meaning no browsing whilst on the tracks. Kind of a bummer, yeah. But I’d take whatever you can get. If trials go well, expect to see the service expand to other stations and perhaps even along the length of the track.
In order to start Monday with some good news, we’ll get the bad out of the way early tonight.
Plenty of mass transit commuters in big cities know that riding taxis, buses, and trains to work results in a fair amount of lost productivity. But a recent wave of tech madness has been sweeping trains and buses, with WiFi access becoming almost common place. Focusing on trains/subway rail lines in particular, the task of getting an outside connection can be quite the challenge. Usually the WiFi is provided via cellular signals. Such signals are hard to come by in many of the environments trains and subways travel through, hence the challenge.
Unfortunately for Chicagoans, talks of Metra getting the WiFi fix are null and void for the time being.
We always hear of smart cars and smart buildings — able to garner/create/give their own energy back to the system — though one important piece of daily life isn’t talked about as often. Roadways are obviously something we’re not going to get away from anytime soon. Until we all start flying or levitating away, our feet or wheels are going to have to touch the ground at some point. Since we’re spending so much time connected to this piece of earth, why not make it more efficient and useful?
An in-ground electrical rail system originally developed in California has made it’s way across the deep blue to Seoul, South Korea. It is there that the technology was implemented in the trams running throughout a local amusement park, ferrying customers to and fro in a much cleaner looking fashion — since the in-road system does away with overhead electrical lines and all. The Online Electric Vehicle system (OLEV) is able to pull energy from the embedded rail lines as well as simply charge when not in use.
Basically it’s like a subway system for above ground people. Nothing too revolutionary though still cool. If only more transportation ran on such things, think of how much cleaner, easier, and more efficient such transportation would be.
Gizmodo > Physorg
- December 22, 2009 7:23 am
It’s kind of unfitting for a tech guru such as myself, one who loves all kinds of lights, sounds, gadgets, and gizmos to live in a land full of nothing but corn and cattle. In short: it sucks. To get my digital/big city fix I have to venture roughly 85 miles west to Chicago. Not really that long of a commute, but still enough to make me want to move. There is however one small issue with big cities — cellphone service/reception isn’t always the greatest due to the extreme amount of stacked concrete all around as well as the increased density of cellphone users whom place greater strain on the network. One other big obstacle of big cities: subways.
San Fransisco is one such city where subways, hills, and buildings make for an unsettling cellular experience. But that experience just received a big boost today with the announcement that the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) will now offer wireless access throughout the Transbay Tube. All the way from West Oakland BART Station to Balboa Park, users traveling in underground in the subway can yak/text/browse it up all while being 6+ feet under.
The best part about the whole ordeal is that favorites are not played. AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint/Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon customers can all benefit form the underground cellular coverage making everyone’s commute a bit less boring.
It’s worth noting that subway coverage has been offered as early as 2001. The amount of coverage however wasn’t as large as it is now. To date, 35% of the underground subway maze is now saturated with wireless goodness with continued projects in 2010 further increasing the underground network’s range.
In case you were wondering, 2010 will see the following rollouts:
- First Quarter 2010: Oakland WYE, 12th, 19th and Lake Merritt Stations
- Second Quarter 2010: Ashby, Berkeley, North Berkeley Stations and connecting tunnels
- Third Quarter 2010: Berkeley Hills Tunnel
- 2011 and beyond: South San Francisco, San Bruno and connecting tunnels.
Anyone in the Bay area care to share a little as to the underground experience?
Cellular-News
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