Transportation companies moving to offer Wi-Fi service

Computerworld - The Wi-Fi public-access market is moving into planes, trains and automobiles as transportation companies embrace the technology as a way to lure or keep customers.
Following this week's announcement by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) of a three-month test of Wi-Fi public access on its Capitol Corridor intercity train route in California (see story), the Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) in York, England, said it plans a similar Wi-Fi test on its passenger rail route between London and Edinburgh.
Meanwhile, in Washington, executive limousine company Carey International Inc. will debut "VIP" cars equipped with Wi-Fi access in major markets across the country this fall. And Scandinavian Airlines System in Stockholm is set to offer the service on its entire long-range fleet beginning in February.
The transportation companies said they're offering the Wi-Fi service in response to passenger demand as well as to gain an advantage over competitors.
Jim Allison, a senior transportation planner for the Capitol Corridor Joint Power Authority (CCJPA), which manages the trains funded by Caltrans and run by Amtrak, said the CCJPA is conducting its test after demand from "tech-savvy" riders. Phil Bustard, a spokesman for the GNER, said the U.K. railway will offer Wi-Fi as way to compete with low-cost airlines by "allowing business travelers to make the best use of their time." And Devon Murphy, president and chief operating officer of Carey, said the Wi-Fi service will be a "significant differentiator" that gives Carey a "competitive edge" over rivals such as the Boston Coach unit of Boston-based Fidelity Investments.
Carey plans to test the Wi-Fi system this fall with one VIP car in each of its Chicago, Boston, New York and San Francisco markets and eventually intends to roll it out to its entire VIP car fleet, which serves a half-million passengers a year, Murphy said.
Carey has tapped Vancouver, British Columbia-based In Motion Technology Inc. to provide its mobile Wi-Fi system, which includes a standard 802.11b access point providing a raw data rate of 11Mbit/sec. The access point is hooked into a cellular data terminal that operates over the Verizon Wireless 1xRTT Code Division Multiple Access network. That network has an average throughput of between 70K and 80Kbit/sec.
Caltrans and the CCJPA chose PointShot Wireless in Ottawa to provide the Wi-Fi service and wide-area connections for its trains; Via Rail Canada launched a similar Wi-Fi test with PointShot last month, using the same architecture.
Icomera AB in Goteburg, Sweden, will provide the Wi-Fi service and hardware for the GNER train. Michael Johannsson, Icomera's