BART signs up for 20 years of Wi-Fi

More than 100 miles of Wi-Fi access is set to
materialize for Net-starved train riders.

(Credit: Bart.gov)

BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's commuter railway, plans to offer Wi-Fi access on all trains and at all stations by 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

The 20-year deal, signed Friday with start-up Wi-Fi Rail, is set to bring high-speed wireless access to BART's 104 miles of track and 43 stations. The network is based on a "huge fiber-optic backbone," according to Wi-Fi Rail.

BART, short for Bay Area Rapid Transit, has been testing the service for about a year in underground sections in San Francisco and on about two miles of open track in Hayward. More than 16,000 people signed up for the pilot service, which has been free, the Chronicle said. Wi-Fi Rail plans to charge $30 per month once the service is fully installed. Other subscription plans, based on hourly, daily, or annual use, will also be available.

According to Wi-Fi Rail, tests on trains running at more than 81 mph "have consistently demonstrated upload and download speeds in excess of 15Mbps."

The company, founded in 2005, is based in the Sacramento area.

[bakedpatato]

Oooo cool, 15mb/s at 80mi/h!
But I dunno.In 20 years, we probably won't be using Wi-Fi.

[Hep Cat]

$30.00 a month?

Good luck charging people ~$1.20 a day for WiFi when pulling out a laptop is likely to get you jumped by some of the hoodlums who ride BART.

Seriously - this isn't a business model, it's a suicide note.

[MSSlayer]

Awesome! It will probably be open or just as bad WEP enabled. Lots of jiucy information to steal and use as an attack launch pad.

[icaf8k]

That's insane. I hope BART isn't wasting any tax payer money on this.

For $30, I get unlimited Internet access through my phone, everywhere, not just on BART.

And WiFi will likely be dead in a few years anyway.

[MSSlayer]

Really?

What is going to replace it?

[nicmart]

Another black whole of government waste.

[shetaan819]

BART needs to be using taxpayer money to expand it's infrastructure so it can run past 12midnite (they claim they close at mindnight to do maintenance, if a BART line needs fixing they currently don't have a backup!) and extend to the entire Bay Area to become useful and not on ideas like this which have already been solved by the prevalence of 3G

[DaMaestro78]

BART wasn't designed to be a 24/7 operation, that goes back to the 60s and 70s during the design phase. BART maintenance includes turning off power to certain segments of the line and trying not to be hit by trains going 30-50 miles an hour. Only if they had 3-4 tracks throughout the whole system would maintenance during the daytime work. As it is, only certain portions of the system have 3 or more tracks. For the aerial structures there is more risk of getting hit since those tracks are closer, whereas most of the tunnels are isolated.

This is not New York where there is one city for five burroughs, there are at least 6 different counties involved, not mention 20 or so cities, with the costs of rail, earthquake readiness, and environmental standards, it's costly to expand the system, which is why Dublin, Pittsburg, and SFO took as long as they did, and why San Jose is taking as long as it is.

[thomashawk]

I think this is a really bad idea. It's too expensive and 20 years is way too long a contract. 10 reasons why this is a bad idea here: http://thomashawk.com/2009/02/10-reasons-why-i-think-the-new-bart-wi-fi-20-year-contract-and-plan-are-a-bad-idea.html

[Hep Cat]

That's OK - idiotic decisions like this are par for the course for BART - which can't even manage to train officers to distinguish a pistol from a taser. It makes sense the same people who are in charge for life at BART would sign a deal for 20 years for wireless service, of all things - something that's changed radically and significantly in the past ten years alone.

[aaydogan]

3G? Unlimited access through your phone? You obviously never ride BART or you would know that there is no access on most routes except at the stations. Continuously available Wi-Fi can help to make BART more attractive to long haul commuters and further reduce urban congestion. It's certainly a better solution than charging people to access the inner city. Is it expensive? Yes. Should BART extend evening and around the bay service? Yes. Those are great ideas, but at least BART is doing something now to increase revenue and ridership and I comment them for it. Now if they could just get that re-loadable, universal transit card into operation we could actually have something that resembles 21st century transporation....like Hong Kong or Singapore.

[42istheanswer]

How about leave the laptop in the bag and just communicate like normal humans. Strike up a conversation with that hoodlum. Make him see the error of his ways and 'come to Jesus'. I wouldn't pay $30/month for wireless unless I lived on the train.

[johnqh]

First, why would people think any government money is used on this project? It seems the Wifi provider got 20-years' privilege to be the exclusive service provider on BART - they are the one who will pay for the construction of the service, and of course they will get the revenue from the users. I don't think it costs BART any money.

Second, this is great news for BART commuters. Why would you worry about thugs? Yes, that can be a concern at the stations, but who would be stupid enough to steal anything in a train with nowhere to go?

Third, $30/month is nothing for a lot of high-tech users. The commute can easily take 40 minutes. You either waste the 80 minutes/day, or make some use of it.

Fourth, there is no cell phone access underground.

Fifth, You don't need a laptop to take advantage of it. An iPhone is enough to make this service useful.

However, I think BART should get the cell phone providers to get their service working in the tunnel. If you go to Asian country like China or Japan, your cell phone works in the subway (both in the train and in the station). It is amazing that you get better cell phone service in China than in Silicon Valley, supposedly the center of high tech innovations.

[paradiseshore]

First person who wasn't whining, ******** and moaning! Thank you!

They have a bit of a point though, no stealing while on a train to nowhere won't help as you have no place to go. But as you pull into a station and the person isn't getting off there - 5 second smash and grab allowing you to run for the hills easily is very easy to see happening. So with this massive backbone and WiFi setup, someone at BART better be planning on having rights to use the system for a hell of a lot better monitoring, cameras and more too!

But back to the sanity - yah, 20 years exclusive. Otherwise what idiot at BART would commit to paying that long AND what idiot at WiFi Rail could even estimate the cost factors to negotiate that far into the future especially as a start-up? The knee-jerk reactions just in this thread alone show how short-sighted too many people are.

And the solution being produced - Netbooks. Built for surfing, 9" screens, WiFi onboard and fits in a purse or briefcase far easier than a laptop. Easily hooked to the same anti-theft cables you could simply attach to a bench in a BART train and watch the (#*$(#* jerk to the ground and laugh hysterically at him as he's dragged outside along the train because he won't let go of the $300 mostly disposable laptop. That's worth $30 a month right there.

Cheap, easy to check your mail and do far more on the way in - flash drive your stuff to your main PC and you're safe and sound. Not that complicated, unless you hate everything and love to whine.

I will again, concede to the other intelligent response about the security of the WiFi as I see trains full of strange folks with their laptops actually perusing your stuff and taking it that way because you have no real security set up. You post replies like we see here instead of learning what the proper settings you can do yourself are. Or maybe those more enterprising folks along the exposed portions with remote antennas to do the same thing without sitting where they could be ID'ed.

Silent thieves, not the hardcore 'thugs' everyone's so paranoid about - that's far more of a realistic threat.

[chucksf]

There is cell access underground. At least AT&T and T-mobile work without interruption from Embarcadero through Civic Center.

[hassan_bin_sober]

I don't go near BART. The cops tend to kill folks!