Government-funded Wi-Fi on trains: who benefits?

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

“Industry sources” have told The Guardian they expect the 2013 budget to include money to install wireless networks in trains, allowing commuters and travellers to get online with non-cellular devices. Currently, less than half of the UK’s 25 rail franchises offer internet onboard. It’s unclear whether the government plans to fund Wi-Fi on all trains, or whether it intends to make wireless internet access free across subsidised services.

As The Guardian points out, pricing for Wi-Fi access on British trains is currently in a state of disarray. It can be free – travellers on the Heathrow Express don’t have to pay a penny, for example, and passengers on the Chilterns mainline also benefit from free web access. Very often, though, internet access is either locked down to everyone, or provided free only to passengers who have coughed up for first-class tickets.

Virgin Trains makes passengers in the cheap seats pay an outrageous £4 per hour. Elsewhere, frequent commuters can pay Greater Anglia trains £209 per year for Wi-Fi access, while East Midlands Trains makes a statement by allowing first-class users online for free, but charging those in standard seats £299 per year. Of the nine rail franchises that offer internet access, four ask for money in return.

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Mobile data survey: tell us your results

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

Last week I wrote about a feature we’re going to be running soon, in which we try to work out what mobile data allowance the average person needs on their contract. I asked you to download and run a traffic monitoring app on your phone for seven days (even if you didn’t, you can still help).

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Why you shouldn’t let builders anywhere near your Wi-Fi

Friday, October 14th, 2011

I’ve just had a proper argument. My circle of friends and even a few colleagues at Dennis will tell you, this isn’t unusual of itself, so I won’t do the down the pub routine that relies heavily on the phrase “So then I said…”. I’ll give you the helicopter view.

It was an argument about Wi-Fi. I went to a meeting to go through re-wiring a retail shop to accommodate a CCTV system, the sales PCs, the PDQ card-payment setup, and the email workstation. There was also a couple of new ventures, in the shape of kiosks for customers to look through the website and ask about styles, sizes and colours not visible in the shop.

At this meeting were the proprietors, me, and a jobbing interior decorator. The list of snags, water leaks and bits of paint and the like was long and diverse: then we came to the wiring. Just a small shop, but very quickly we arrived at a total of 15 locations. It’s also an old building, which means that it won’t be falling down any time soon; but conversely, drilling holes is going to be a proper rufty-tufty builder’s job, one I am very glad I won’t be undertaking. Looking at the job in hand, the jobbing builder decided to propose a different approach: Why not just put in wireless?

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What’s really killing your Wi-Fi? Here’s a graphic illustration

Friday, August 19th, 2011

We’ve written many times about how crowded the 2.4GHz frequency band is becoming these days, and how that can affect the reliability and speed of your wireless network.

There are so many devices and routers now using the unlicensed space between 2,400MHz and 2,475MHz that finding a quiet, undisturbed channel for your network to reside on is nigh on impossible. That’s why we recommend anyone upgrading their wireless router chooses a dual-band model — one that gives you the option of connecting in the less congested 5GHz frequency band.

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Why Android owners shouldn’t worry about Metro’s front page splash

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Today’s Metro has a spectacularly sensationalist headline (that’s now been changed on the website) screaming from its front page: “Android phones ‘all leak secrets’”. That’s potentially worrying if, like me, you’re an avid Android user – after all, if I wanted my phone to be less private than Jordan’s holiday, I would have bought an iPhone (only joking Apple lawyers).

According to Metro, “almost all” Android phones are vulnerable to a problem that allows “criminals to steal users’ personal information”. That’s done, theoretically, by hackers using unsecured Wi-Fi networks to gain access to the data contained within your phone’s Calendar and Contacts applications, according to researchers at Ulm University, in Germany. (more…)

The big tablet debate: 3G or Wi-Fi-only?

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Upon reading my review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, our picky editor Barry Collins turned to me with a criticism. “The fact that there’s no 3G version,” he argued, “should surely count against it, shouldn’t it?”

Should it? We tend to review the Wi-Fi-only models of tablets, because that’s what we’re usually sent. We’ll mention the 3G options in the review, but it’s up to manufacturers to decide whether to offer them or not, and up to consumers to buy them.

It started a debate, one which began in the office and spilled over to the PC Pro podcast as well. Then I posed the question – to 3G or not to 3G? – on Twitter, and it generated an unexpected level of response. (more…)

What’s killing your Wi-Fi? Wrapping your house in tin foil

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

On the cover of this month’s magazine (on sale today) we ask: what’s killing your Wi-Fi? Among the many answers – and solutions – you’ll find in our cover feature is one supplied by our Real World wireless expert, Paul Ockenden.

“Modern homes constructed largely of plaster board also use signal-bouncing foil coating in bathrooms and kitchens,” Paul offers as one possible reason for erratic Wi-Fi reception.

Judging by a walk past a local housing development, it’s not only kitchens and bathrooms that are being turned into giant Faraday cages – it’s the whole house.

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The Samsung camera that backs up your photos

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Samsung has announced a swathe of cameras at CES, but one in particular caught my eye. Not the Samsung NX11, with its intelligent lenses that allow you to adjust settings on the lens itself; not the WB700 with its astounding/ridiculous 18x optical zoom; but the SH100, which can back up photos wirelessly simply by being close to your PC.

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The question Ofcom won’t answer: is it safe to run an open Wi-Fi hotspot?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

You may remember a few weeks ago, we reported on how Ofcom’s proposed code of conduct for dealing with illegal file-sharing contained a veiled warning to the providers of free or open Wi-Fi connections.

In a nutshell, anyone who provides an open Wi-Fi connection – be that a company with a free hotspot in their reception or a home user who decides to leave their router unprotected – will be held responsible if someone downloads copyrighted material on their connection. (Unless, bizarrely, they are a coffee shop or other business that offers Wi-Fi access in conjunction with other goods or services, in which cased they’re treated as an ISP).

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How to keep freeloaders off your Wi-Fi connection

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Here’s an ever-so-slightly ingenious way of keeping spongers, hackers and the proletariat off your home or office Wi-Fi connection – just rename your router as follows:

(Image via F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen)