electricron wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 9:02 am
StLouSteve wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 7:43 am
Wifi service onboard along the route using cell carriers isn't very robust and drops out entirely for a stretch around Carlinville so I can imagine there might be transmission issues with the PTC.
Somewhat ironic because I believe the ROW does host fiber optic cables.
I-ETMS uses satellites to locate the train on the surface of the Earth, intentionally to avoid the costs associated with all surface communication lines. Try this little experiment sometime at home, watch a live stream youtube or twitch video simulateneously on several devices - your phone, your notebook, you desktop computer, your TV media device. Note how none are actually synchronized and showing the same thing at any particular time. That's satellite based world wide web working poorly for you - but working. Just not good enough for 110 mph train speeds apparently.
I know this post is quite old, but I can't let it go. Very little of the internet is carried via satellite, even most mobile internet is via terrestrial towers. Your experiment to bring up a bunch of streaming basically has nothing whatsoever to do with I-ETMS or internet coverage along the line. The satellite component of I-ETMS seems to just be the GPS segment, which is positional and receive only. The ground to train segment I believe uses a new 220MHz radio network installed by the railroads in specific locations to meet their coverage needs. The issues with I-ETMS from what I have read, are due to the inherently imprecise nature of satellite positioning. When a train's receiver can't calculate just from GPS which track the train is on, or there's a quick position jump and the train suddenly thinks its going 100mph in a 45, the system has to bring the train to a stop. As speeds go up, the safety tolerances have to be tighter, the system HAS to be quicker to assume an issue and bring the train to a stop. I think there are some issues with the 220MHz network too, but that's due to poor planning on the part of the railroads, and still has nothing whatsoever to do with internet coverage on the route.
Now, to answer the original post about internet. That is due to the lack of cell service along the track. Unless the railroads needed the cell service (some might), carriers largely have no real incentive to make their service particularly accessible along the railroad. The cell towers aren't just big omnidirectional antennas, these days they use some pretty advanced "steering" of the radio signal, and again, unless they had a reason to, they aren't going to steer them to cover the railroad.