How does wifi on public transport work?

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qwerty7

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#115901 11-Apr-2013 08:00

Like buses trains etc. I see free wifi is becoming more common but how does it actually work. Is it a business 3g account connected to a router? Any idea what it would roughly cost to setup and run?

freitasm

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#797540 11-Apr-2013 08:06

The ones in the airport buses around Wellington is a Vodafone 3G router.

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sbiddle

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#797556 11-Apr-2013 08:44

Typically a 3G connection back to a corporate APN to aggregate the data. A corporate APN will cost you somewhere in the vicinity of $5k or so to setup and then you've got ongoing monthly costs and connectivity from VF or Telecom back into your network which depend on usage so aren't something that you can place a ballpark figure on.

qwerty7

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#797672 11-Apr-2013 11:05

It is for a school assignment I am wanting to know. The cheapest 3g plans I can find online are $80/month for 4gb. I could see free wifi on buses easily reaching 4gb a day.

NonprayingMantis

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#797676 11-Apr-2013 11:09

They can easily place limitations on what you can and can’t use the wifi for, either by restricting the actual URLs etc and traffic types or by simply throttling any one connections speed.
If you disallow, say, video streaming, music streaming, and torrenting, and limit speed per conection to, say, 1Mbps, then it is very unlikely you will be getting huge amounts of usage over the wifi connection.

sbiddle

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#797745 11-Apr-2013 13:12

I don't see free WiFi ever becoming the norm in NZ on public transport unless you can find a WiFi provider who wants to attempt an advertising model to pay for the service.

Public transport is very heavily subsidised by taxpayers as it is now so I see no justifiction at all for increasing these subsidies to fund a user pays service. One could easily argue if you're going to subsiside WiFi for a bus then you should also offer free coffee..

Note the Flyer in Wellington is a commercial service, it is not taxpayer funded so receives no subsidy.

ajobbins

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#797808 11-Apr-2013 14:58

I find WiFi in public places largely useless. My smartphone and tablet have enough data on their own, and the WiFi on the likes of the Airport Flyer is just a pain.

Anything that has a captive portal can DIAF as far as I am concerned.

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wellygary

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#797832 11-Apr-2013 15:51

ajobbins: I find WiFi in public places largely useless. My smartphone and tablet have enough data on their own, and the WiFi on the likes of the Airport Flyer is just a pain.

Anything that has a captive portal can DIAF as far as I am concerned.

+1, I think Public Wifi has missed the boat for NZers, 2 years ago there was a market for it, but with the explosion in Smart phones and Data prices falling ( still not cheap, but now much more reasonable) most people are able to get online without needing free wifi.

Most of the users of Wellington's waterfront and TePapa's free Wifi appear to the backpacking tourists.....

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#797836 11-Apr-2013 15:55

Great for (incoming) international travellers though who don't want to roam.

richms

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#797993 11-Apr-2013 19:25

Some providers are dreaming. look at the zenbu services for some insane pricing. Most motel free wifi is a $5 voucher on that crap. 50 megs. total joke.

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#798601 12-Apr-2013 21:04

richms: Some providers are dreaming. look at the zenbu services for some insane pricing. Most motel free wifi is a $5 voucher on that crap. 50 megs. total joke.

People would rather have cheap but limited wifi that works than "free" unlimited wifi that doesn't. Explanation of Zenbu pricing here: http://www.zenbu.net.nz/faq.php#51

You can ask proprietors to provide as much free wifi as you like, just as you can ask them to give a discount on the room rate. They print and provide their own Zenbu access codes and that process costs them nothing. They pay for their isp supplies. They want their internet connection to not be overloaded.

With the slow upload speeds in NZ, it takes few users to overload a connection. Many places have 5 or 10 people connected simultaneously. A few have 20. That's a lot of people for the low capacity broadband in New Zealand.

ajobbins

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#798756 13-Apr-2013 13:00

With falling data romaing prices we are not actually seeing WiFi services and hotels charging more that what it costs to just pay the roaming data costs.

I don't even use WiFi when I stay in hotels even if it's free. The painful captive portals just aren't worth the trouble.

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