Upgrade Brings Faster WiFi to the New Train Fleet

Thanks to an upgrade the WiFi speeds on Greater Anglia’s new fleet of trains is even faster.

The new Wifi-equipped trains began running services on the East Suffolk Lines Ipswich – Felixstowe 19 November and Ipswich – Lowestoft 2 December of last year. By the first week of February this year the new bi-mode fleet had replaced all the old diesel trains across the regional routes.

Since that time, and before the coronavirus travel restrictions, the number of passengers connecting to the train’s free WiFi service steadily increased. Just as home broadband slows down when more people in the household connect to the internet, the same thing can happen when more people connect to the on-board WiFi system.

To stay ahead of the curve Greater Anglia worked with its service provider to increase the bandwidth on the new bi-mode trains. More bandwidth allows more passengers to connect simultaneously providing faster download and upload speeds. The upgrade was also applied to the new Intercity fleet which is now in service and will be extended to Stansted Express trains when they enter service later this year.

Himesh Patel, Head of Greater Anglia’s IT Service Delivery team, said, “The reliability of the WiFi on our new train fleet is much better than on our old fleet, so more people will be using it to work, use social media or stream while they’re travelling with us.

“To ensure that they still enjoy fast browsing speeds, we’ve increased the bandwidth to ensure it keeps pace with demand and delivers a good experience.”