I would love to have internet access on the MBTA Commuter Rail. I don’t ride it into work, but I know many people who do, and I may be joining their numbers in the spring when my office location will probably change. I’m drooling at the thought.
While we were talking, we got around to WiFi. UTA has plans to install WiFi access points at the stations along the TRAX (light rail) line. This is pretty easy to do since they already have network access at each station. The question remains whether commuters will have access to the network or not. I’d like to see it taken one step further and have Internet access on the train itself. That would sure get my attention as a commuter.
The big question is whether this would be a service offered to promote commuting or as a revenue source. I know plenty of people who would pay $10/month to have Internet access while they ride the train. It would be pretty easy to do using a captive portal. Have users establish an account and then give them a token each time they log in that’s good for an hour of access (long enough to go end to end). We even got in a conversation about warchalking! [Windley’s Enterprise Computing Weblog]