BDUK Gifts Northern Rail GBP750k for On-board Train FREE WiFi Upgrade

Commuters travelling on Northern Rail’s trains from Leeds and Bradford (England) can now access free on-board wireless Internet (WiFi) connectivity thanks to a new scheme that has been funded by £750,000 from the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK programme. This appears to be the first on-train scheme that BDUK has funded.

The joint initiative between Northern Rail, Leeds City Council, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, BDUK and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority means that those who travel using Northern’s electric trains, which operate between Leeds – Skipton and Ilkley – Bradford Forster Square, can now access a 20Mbps capable free WiFi network with “unlimited entertainment“.

Apparently the “high-quality” entertainment content, which includes audiobooks from Audible, games, music, local and national news and even some popular TV shows streamed via Sky’s NOW TV platform, comes courtesy of content provider Spoken Ink and in order to support better performance much of this will be stored (cached) locally on Icomera’s on-board hardware (i.e. no need to gobble valuable Internet bandwidth for every repeat stream).

Rob Warnes, Planning and Programmes Director for Northern, said:

“We’ve seen a great take up in the on-board WiFi, registering over 100,000 users so far and customers have been telling us they love the speed as well as the content.”

Ed Vaizey MP, Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy, said:

“Providing free WiFi on public transport and in public spaces is just one of the ways we’re boosting connectivity across our cities. It is great to see the positive impact this is already having for commuters in Bradford and Leeds. With continued investment in superfast broadband we will ensure our cities continue to be attractive places to live, visit and do business in.”

It should be noted that the new funding stems from the BDUK managed Urban Broadband Fund and its “Super-Connected Cities” programme, rather than from the semi-separate “rural” broadband budget that is governed by the same office. Never the less some will no doubt feel that such money could be better spent elsewhere.

Otherwise we note that the related press release mentions “20MB” for MegaBytes per second, when it should probably have expressed that as 20Mb for Megabits. Not a big problem, after all it only represents eight times the speed difference.