Wi-Fi, Choo-Choo, Part II

Continued from 'Wi-Fi On The Choo-Choo'….

Amtrak is once again beta-testing Wi-Fi on the train, and I'm happy to report that the experience is much improved. Their service partner is Opti-Fi, but judging from the logos on the sign-on screen, PointShot Wireless is also still involved. I've got both Sprint and GSM (T-Mobile, who has roaming agreements with Cingular in N. California) cell phones, and by looking at which cell phone has lost coverage at the rare occasions when a 'ping' attempt to Yahoo fails, I'm guessing they've switched to GPRS for the upstream cellular connection. This may be for coverage reasons, which I doubt from my two years' worth of solid Sprint experiences. My guess is that cost may also be involved; whereas my unlimited data plan is $80/month from Sprint, the unlimited data add-on to my T-Mobile cellular plan is only $20/month.

As before, the within-car wireless connection is 802.11b; they're charging $6.95 for 24 hours' worth of service. Below are three datapoints for your perusal:

Stationary, at 6:15AM PST in Sacramento:
Average ping time to www.yahoo.com: 650 msec
Downstream bandwidth per CNET Bandwidth Meter Speed Test: 472.7 Kbps
Per DSLReports' Bandwidth Test (to MegaPath servers in San Francisco):
Your download speed : 267916 bps, or 261 kbps.
A 32.7 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 52035 bps, or 50 kbps.

Moving at full speed, in-between Sacramento and Davis:
Average ping time: 650 msec
Downstream bandwidth per CNET Bandwidth Meter Speed Test: 461.9 Kbps
Per DSLReports' Bandwidth Test (to MegaPath servers in San Francisco):
Your download speed : 254832 bps, or 248 kbps.
A 31.1 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 31221 bps, or 30 kbps.

Moving at full speed, south of Davis:
Average ping time: 800 msec
Downstream bandwidth per CNET Bandwidth Meter Speed Test: 323.9 Kbps
Per DSLReports' Bandwidth Test (to MegaPath servers in San Francisco):
Your download speed : 240375 bps, or 234 kbps.
A 29.3 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 54788 bps, or 53 kbps.

Occasional 'ping' tests throughout the trip showed near-100% coverage and consistent bandwidth pretty much the whole route, with the exception of a few brief coverage outages north of Richmond, in two cases due to tunnel passages. I'm in San Francisco now, and it's a beautiful day in the City. Hope it's the same wherever you are.