T-Mobile to offer the world's first broadband Wi-Fi service on trains

T-Mobile announced the world's first genuine broadband Wi-Fi service on
trains, which will be available to passengers on the London to Brighton rail
route by early summer. Passengers on Southern's express rail service between
London and Brighton - one of the busiest railway routes for business people
traveling to and from London - will be able to send and receive e-mails or surf
the Internet securely all while traveling on the train.

The Wi-Fi service for commuters from T-Mobile, called T-Mobile HotSpot, will
give passengers the opportunity to enjoy broadband speeds from their Wi-Fi
enabled laptops or PDAs for the whole journey between Brighton to London.

T-Mobile will offer passengers a free trial of the service between early
March and end of April. During this trial period, the service will initially be
available on a limited number of trains on this route. The service is planned
for launch by early this summer, once the full rollout has been implemented.

The service is made possible through a partnership with Southern (who are
providing access to the trains and station locations where the service will be
offered), Nomad Digital (who provide the technology) and T-Mobile (who offer the
Wi-Fi service to customers).

T-Mobile's HotSpot service will be offered by the installation of Wi-Fi
access points within the train's carriages, which in turn are connected to a
WiMax network running alongside the tracks. These links pass data in both
directions at rates of up to 32Mb/s, making this the fastest data link to a
train anywhere in the world.

Brian McBride, MD, T-Mobile, UK, commented, "T-Mobile is fully committed
to the introduction of Wi-Fi on trains, and is a natural and compelling
extension of our Wi-Fi network as well as a complement to our existing GPRS and
3G services.

He continued, "We see a growing trend for business users needing to
access email securely on the move. Now T-Mobile is able to offer this by
maintaining a constant data session for the entire journey, something other
solutions just can't offer today."

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