As hotspot plans go, this is potentially a doozy: Citytrain in Queensland plans to offer free Wi-Fi access to commuters on trains and at railway stations in 2010.
Darrel Giles at the Courier Mail reports that a security upgrade for Citytrain stations and carriages, which will utilise Wi-Fi to connect cameras throughout the network, will have the side benefit of allowing commuters to access the Net via their laptops or mobile phones.
As Nick over at Gizmodo points out, the claim that the service will be available to commuters but not an option for free Internet for anyone living near a station doesn’t seem to hold up to particularly close scrutiny. It’s likely that Citytrain will emulate the approach used by McDonald’s (enforced logins, time limits, and blocking of any protocol other than basic HTTP), but as the project doesn’t go up for tender until July, we won’t know for a while yet.
Citytrain commuters to receive free internet access [Courier Mail via Gizmodo]
Mark Kernke
April 15, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Could you please read the comments on the Gizmodo article before posting something like this and stirring more hype over potentially nothing. There is more to journalism than getting the story out, you should verify all the facts first.
Report PermalinkBen Grubb
April 19, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Mark,
I did some research on the topic and have some more information here:
Report Permalinkhttp://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25345995-5014239,00.html
Craig
April 15, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Awesome. I’ll have to start catching the train next year so this is just perfect.
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