Wifi on virgin trains

[Jimbo NW]

Hi all,

I've dropped a bk and ended up being sent down to London on Monday night to work the IDC IT event at covent garden Tuesday.

The earliest train I can get back up north is at 7:30 pm Tuesday night which unfortunately for me clashes with the united Real Madrid games.

This is unmissable so I was wondering, would the train wifi be sufficient to get the game on itv player? If its a little laggy that's fine but if not ill just save it and watch when I get home?

Mods hope this is the right section but feel free to move if,

Thanks all,
J

[Stupeo]

In my experience, it's crap. They actually throttle bandwidth so is be surprised if you could watch it low quality.

[davepoth]

If you're that desperate, a 3G PAYG dongle will likely only be £20 or so for 1GB of data, and you can bin it afterwards?

[mouseymousey]

in my experience both the train Wi-fi and 3g signal is too ropey for streaming. I wouldn't bother, it will just frustrate the hell out of you!

[uber]

I use Glasgow to Euston every month and have never been able to get any sort of decent connection even going past big cities. I have resorted to doing offline work or watching movies to pass the time ( the food is decent , especially those choc chip brownie cookies )

[Steven Quas]

I tried this on a Virgin train a couple of months ago and I agree that streaming is unlikely. It seemed to show about 1Mbps on Speedtest, but in practice it seemed slower. Perhaps that only applies to the first part - enough to let you load a webpage. Ordinary browsing and emails were fine

Steven Quas

Hamburg

Edited by Steven Quas on Friday 15th March 14:19

[a311]

I went to London 1st Class before Xmas. It's pretty crap, I was trying to stream episodes of Breaking Bad and intermitent. it would work for 10 mins then stop buffer and continue a few mins later. Would be annoying as hell trying to watch live sport.

[Bodie390]

I think it does state somewhere not to stream tv and movies as there are several other passengers doing the same and it just goes on the slow.

I just use it for simple browsing and its fine apart form Kilsby tunnel.

[marshalla]

Most of the train WiFi services block the common streaming sites. The connections are so variable (high latency, frequent loss of signal) you'd struggle to get even a single frame of video most of the time anyway.

[Chrisgr31]

Any form of internet connection on a train is a total waste of time, although having said that on the Chilterns line it appeared a bit better than useless, but thats no good to the OP.

Quite why the mobile companies cant sort reception on trains is anyones guess.

[Kermit power]

I've tried Netflix and Lovefilm between London and Preston, both on mobile and wifi. I managed to not quite get through a single 35 minute programme in the 2 and a bit hours it takes to get there.

Definitely wouldn't work for streaming live sport.

[rpguk]

Get a later train and watch it in the pub?

[cashmax]

Wifi on the train is back hauled using 3G. You have zero chance of streaming, even if you are the only user connected.

[matt3001]

Can you not just sit in the lounge at Euston getting free beer and use the much faster internet connection in there to stream? Then get the last train home?

[ewenm]

rpguk said:

Get a later train and watch it in the pub?

This.

[Amateurish]

Listen to it on the radio!

[Steven Quas]

cashmax said:

Wifi on the train is back hauled using 3G. You have zero chance of streaming, even if you are the only user connected.

Do the trains just have a few 3G antennas or how does it work? I wonder if it would be possible to use the rails or the overhead power lines to act as a wired connection so no problems through tunnels or embankments...

I assume this will improve a lot once they install 4G.

Steven Quas

Hamburg

[Blown2CV]

the major issue is that they haven't yet solved the problem of swapping between mobile masts at speed. So, you get OK connection for a few mins, then it drops completely, then OK for a bit. Same as mobile signal on the motorway (as a passenger!), except worse.