Why your Wi-Fi is poorly rated by your passengers

Passengers often rate the quality of on-board Wi-Fi poorly, so how can train operators solve this problem?

Railway operators know that for the young population, the most important factor when choosing a railway company is the quality of the on-board Wi-Fi service. This factor is the most decisive, above and beyond comfort, punctuality, or even the hygiene of the train bathrooms. Although it may seem extreme, the truth is that this makes a lot of sense. Today, most train passengers fall into one of these two categories:

• Business travelers or students – in both cases, these passengers want to spend as much time as possible on board the train studying, working on papers or reports, collecting information to prepare for meetings or even holding conferences with customers or suppliers
• Tourists – they are likely to take advantage of the time on board by chatting with friends or family, checking social networks or sharing photos and memories. They may also want to search for information or book hotels or flights so they can continue their journey without a worry and have everything ready when they get off the train.

While it may appear that many of them will use their 3G/4G or even 5G data plans, the latest studies indicate the opposite. Interestingly, they will try to connect to a Wi-Fi network as soon as they gain access to it. Cellular networks have many benefits and advantages for certain users, but when everyone wants to download large amounts of data wirelessly, at the moment there is no technology that can beat a premium Wi-Fi network.