Pointshot To Offer WiFi On Bay Area Train
More wifi on train stories, but this one gives us an indication of how successful this model has been.Pointshot will WiFi-enable the ACE train, which brings commuters from suburbs into silicon valley. As always, the big question in train (or any moving) hotspots is “What’s the backhaul?” (meaning what gets the Internet to the train. Pointshot uses Satellite for downstream and 1xRTT cellular for upstream, the same as they did with Bell Mobility for a similar service which Techdirt covered in July. In the comments section we discuss the technology. Pointshot says the Canadian project is proving successful, and they are widening the scope by enabling additional railcars. These are much more credible efforts than the one we discussed last week where Virgin railways in the UK claimed to offer WiFi on trains, but it ridiculously proved to be just WiFi “into” trains from train stations, and no coverage at all when out of the station.
