GO Transit officially launched their free Wi-Fi pilot project last week, with free Wi-Fi now available at Pickering and Clarkson stations. Oakville is expected to be added to that list in a few weeks. The pilot phase of the project is expected to last six months, and will eventually service eight train stations and three bus terminals. They hope to have free Wi-Fi at all GO locations within a year.
However, they did want to have Wi-Fi on buses and trains as well, but were unable to find a service that would provide it for free (which makes sense?). The other challenge is finding a service that can handle a GO train’s 1800 passengers at once. The move to include free Wi-Fi is the result of a recent customer survey that found that free Wi-Fi was the #2 most requested feature by GO passengers (the other was heated shelters).
Meanwhile, across the Pacific in Japan, the Tokyo subway has also launched a free Wi-Fi pilot project. Theirs however, is already available at 30 stations, despite being launched at the same time as GO. They also have reinforced their 3G and cellphone network capabilities in subway tunnels for the best possible signal underground. We’re truly living in the future over here in the GTA.
[via The Toronto Star]
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Megan Patterson is the Science and Technology Editor at Paper Droids and currently a Toronto Standard intern. She also tweets more than is healthy or wise.
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