Business Traveller: Staying connected on planes, trains and automobiles

Time spent on business travel no longer needs to be wasted. Mobile workers now have a number of ways to check emails and log on to the corporate network no matter where they are. Anthony Plewes takes a look at the services that are available on three modes of transport.

Trains

Train operators in the UK have long been promoting themselves to businesses as a credible alternative to driving. Wi-fi is already present in many first-class waiting lounges and is now climbing aboard a number of intercity trains.

Although installing wi-fi access points in carriages is relatively straightforward, a more significant challenge is connecting the moving trains to the fixed internet. The backhaul options are either mobile (GSM/GPRS, 3G) or satellite which means there may be less bandwidth available for internet access than there is in fixed deployments of wi-fi. However, the backhaul challenge is the operator's concern. All that the user needs to do is log on to the access point.

In the UK, GNER and Virgin are making the most noise about their on-board connectivity. GNER has enabled 25 of its new 'Mallard' trains with wi-fi access and is planning to kit out its entire fleet with wireless access. It offers the service free to first class passengers, while standard class travellers pay around £5 per hour. The GNER service is provided by Icomera, which handles backhaul with a combination of satellite and 3G/GPRS.

Virgin is a little behind GNER in deployment but it plans to offer wi-fi service on all its 131 Pendolino and Voyager trains during 2006. The service, which is being deployed by Qinetic, will also use mobile and satellite for backhaul.

T-Mobile is helping Southern Railway to wire up the London to Brighton line with wireless access. The service is delivered to users on the train through wi-fi and will use WiMax for backhaul. To cope with the speed of the train, the system installer Nomad Digital has spaced the WiMax base stations at one mile intervals along the track. The service is currently available on nine of Southern Railway trains and forms part of T-Mobile's nationwide hotspot network.

Of course wi-fi is not the only way that users can access broadband data services on trains. Users can do it themselves with 3G, if they have a 3G data card in their laptop and can find network coverage. They may find, though, that coverage is patchy at best, limited to cities and towns. Speed of travel is also an issue: 3G struggles with extremely fast moving terminals so hurtling up the West Coast mainline at more than 100mph may result in substantial data loss.

And then there's the issue of the wrong type of glass: the toughened glass of train carriages interferes with 3G signals. 3G can offer fast, fluid internet access but it helps if you're sitting still and out in the open.

One way to overcome 3G coverage limitations is to install repeaters in the actual train that help signals penetrate the carriage body. Virgin Trains has already started down this path, commissioning Orange to install a series of repeaters that link to a network of aerials throughout the train. This will help cut down on interference from the train carriages but is still limited in its capacity to deal with the lack of signals in tunnels. Further, there is frequently limited trackside coverage from the mobile operators simply because train routes often pass through unpopulated areas.

Planes

Airlines have a quite different problem to train operators. While there are no tunnels to interfere with the signals, there is the matter of stringent regulation of radio signals in the air. While these restrictions are being gradually relaxed, mobile phone calls in aircraft are still barred.

Business travellers desperate to stay in contact at 30,000ft can always use the on-board satellite telephone system. Operators are recognising that satellite can offer more than connectivity for voice: with the upgrade of Eutelsat, Inmarsat and Intelsat networks, some airlines are now offering data access via satellite.

Boeing has been particularly active in this field. On board, end users connect to a wi-fi access point which then connects to a network of satellites to backhaul the data. Boeing's service costs users $26.95 for the entire flight, or users can buy one-hour blocks from $9.95.

The 'Connection by Boeing' service is not limited to only Boeing plans and is currently available on the fleets of 11 different airlines. Boeing's first customer was Lufthansa, which now offers the broadband service on 50 of its major long-haul routes out of Frankfurt and Munich.

Most of the interest in on-board wi-fi comes from airlines outside the US, according to Carl Blume, director of marketing at Colubris, which provides wi-fi hardware for the Boeing solution. But he says this is mainly because of the parlous state of the US airlines, rather than any lack of demand.

In future, if regulations preventing mobile phone use on aircraft are relaxed, users will be able to use their own phones on board. One option would be to use a picocell on the plane itself. This on-board base station will allow the mobile phones on the plane to use minimal power, while the picocell will be responsible for relaying the signals to the ground, probably by satellite.

Satellite service provider Inmarsat is planning to launch its next generation in-air broadband service at the end of 2006. This will also support in-flight GSM service, along with allowing passengers to make voice calls, browse the internet and receive emails on laptop PCs, BlackBerrys and other PDAs.

A new generation of aircraft such as the Boeing 787 will be delivered with wi-fi already installed. And wi-fi of course is not only used for passenger communications. It can also be used to download passenger manifests, catering information and entertainment when at the airport.

Automobiles

While communications in trains and planes are focused on enabling business travellers to work more productively, the developments in in-car communications centre on getting drivers to their destinations more quickly. Early productivity applications such as text-to-speech systems which read emails to drivers have failed to take off, while 'sat-nav' (or satellite navigation) systems are booming.

Steve Crammond, a member of PA Consulting's management group, says: "Vehicle telematics is largely hype, and there is still no evidence that people are prepared to pay for these services. Car owners are conditioned to buying a car and not having to pay an additional monthly charge."

The most common new in-car technology is Bluetooth systems that charge your mobile phone, PDA, MP3 player or other devices and let you control them through voice activation or by using buttons on the steering wheel.

Fiat and Volkswagen are the leaders here. VW's Passats can be outfitted with Nokia's in-car Bluetooth system while Fiat is working with Microsoft to give its cars similar functionality.

In-car navigation is proving popular but typically involves little two-way communication. Maps are typically downloaded from the user's PC and stored locally. Live traffic updates are an exception. These are available as an additional extra for navigation hardware such as Tom Tom. Unfortunately, in the UK even the most up-to-the-minute traffic information may be insufficient to extricate drivers from a 10 mile tailback on the M1.

If drivers do want fast internet access while on the road, they will have to pull over (remember, it is illegal to use mobiles while driving). Most motorway service stations offer paid-for and free wi-fi hotspots. Alternatively, drivers can use their cars to transport them to the nearest 3G coverage area.

While many of these current automobile communications are rather prosaic, the future looks to be much more exciting. Car-to-car communication using short-range network technology such as wi-fi will allow cars to share operational information, which can also be passed to roadside information points. BT, for example, has been involved in a project doing just this in Nottingham.

Geoff Scott, head of collaboration at the BT CTO Office, says: "We used on-board wi-fi to share information, such as anti-lock brakes, fog lights, windscreen wipers. We can do clever things with this information. If we know that it is cold and foggy and there is lots of braking, then there is a high potential for freezing fog and accidents, this can be relayed to the traffic control centre and up the road to other vehicles."

Whether on planes, trains or automobiles, there is no stopping the march of ubiquitous communications. The form the communication takes, however, should become increasingly irrelevant for the business traveller as multimode devices become more prevalent.

In fact, according to Mike Hook, principal consultant engineer at Roke Manor Research, the rise of converged fixed-mobile devices is just the beginning.

In the future converged devices and infrastructure will allow users to access any available network transparently. All that will be stopping communications on public transport will be user resistance, because not everyone likes to hear a broker barking over their phone to close a deal.