Thalys

[fowler9]

Does anyone know what the large dome is on the roof of one of the Thalys carriages a few away from the power car? I was guessing some kind of transponder but it did look pretty big. I've not noticed it on similar train types before. I was lucky enough to travel on one from Schipol to Antwerp on Thursday, a very pleasant experience it was to.

Also can anyone help with rolling stock info. I'd like to find out the number of the Thalys set we travelled on on the 09:33 from Schipol. Also the number of the loco pulling the 13:26 IC service from Antwerp to Brussels Centraal. Finally the number of the Class 373 on the 17:56 from Brussels Midi. Not got a clue what the service we got from Centraal to Midi was. It was a last minute jump on the train situation.

Any assistance much appreciated as I lost my scrap of paper.

 

[Alfie1014]

It is a wi-fi dome many TGVs have them too.

 

[fowler9]

It is a wi-fi dome many TGVs have them too.

Cheers mate. It looks pretty huge for a wi fi dome! Not saying I don't believe you of course. Ha ha.

 

[Strathclyder]

Did it look like this?

 

[reb0118]

Or this:-

 

[fowler9]

Did it look like this?

Indeed it did.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Or this:-

Come to think of it!

 

[Strathclyder]

From this spacedaily.com page:

The Internet connection is made through a tracking antenna fixed to the roof of one of the carriages. The innovative satellite-tracking antenna design includes specially developed software that maintains a continuous two-way link with the host satellite. The connection is continuous even though the satellite is at an altitude of 36 000 km and the train is travelling at 300 km/h, an impressive technological achievement.

 

[fowler9]

From this spacedaily.com page:

Cheers mate. It is indeed impressive.

 

[jon0844]

Was on Thalys two days ago (Brussels to Cologne) and the Wi-Fi was pretty good. I got it free but my wife was told to register and pay. Odd as neither of us had registered before.

Very red interior with purple lights. As if Richard Branson had designed it. Well, bar it being spacious and with large windows that line up...

 

[fowler9]

Was on Thalys two days ago (Brussels to Cologne) and the Wi-Fi was pretty good. I got it free but my wife was told to register and pay. Odd as neither of us had registered before.

Very red interior with purple lights. As if Richard Branson had designed it. Well, bar it being spacious and with large windows that line up...

My phone connected to wi fi initially even though it shouldn't have done. A really good connection as well. It was an interesting experience to be able to compare it to a Eurostar, a normal inter city service (In Belgium) and a Pendolino on the same day.

 

[brianthegiant]

I've always wondered how is wifi provided on uk trains?

 

[fowler9]

I've always wondered how is wifi provided on uk trains?

From experience badly. To be fare it is hard to do on a train moving through a sparsely populated area.

 

[jon0844]

Wifi on East coast is the same domed satellite system, with mobile data fallback.

 

[WatcherZero]

Yes same on UK trains, a sattelite dish communicating with a sattelite has a limited amount of bandwith to relay mobile phone calls and Wi-Fi internet, leaving it vulnerable when the line of sight is broken by buildings or tunnels and giving a high latency due to travel distance.

A project has just been commenced nationally to replace it with trackside-to-train Wi-fi towers similar to GSM-R on commuter routes, though will take years to build the infrastructure.

 

[higthomas]

Did it look like this?

Wow that is ugly. It reminds me of some deformed boil.

 

[Myb]

Was on Thalys two days ago (Brussels to Cologne) and the Wi-Fi was pretty good. I got it free but my wife was told to register and pay. Odd as neither of us had registered before.

That's rather strange. Normally 2nd class passengers need to pay and 1st class get it free, so it could be that the two devices did not connect to the same Wi-fi router.

 

[jon0844]

Quite probably. Came back on ICE and WiFi wasn't free at all, unless you can ask for a voucher when in first class.

I opted to use my phone in the end. £5 a day (max 25GB) and shared the connection with my wife. Technically you're not allowed to tether, but it worked.

 

[radamfi]

Am I paranoid in not wanting to use public WiFi, including on the train, out of security concerns? I do use it, but only in conjunction with a VPN, and do get worried when the VPN cuts out as it often does.

I generally use my own data in the UK and now even in most of Europe, now there is the Orange Mundo (Spain) 'Go Europe' tariff that gives you 100 MB of data in 24 hours for 1 euro. It works in all EU countries, plus Norway and Iceland. If you go over 100 MB you just pay another euro.

 

[Olaf]

Am I paranoid in not wanting to use public WiFi ...

Definitely not; you need to be self-censoring to be on the safe side at the very least, and VPN offers a higher degree of security but still there a number of open CVEs for wi-fi.

 

[anme]

That's rather strange. Normally 2nd class passengers need to pay and 1st class get it free, so it could be that the two devices did not connect to the same Wi-fi router.

Passengers with more flexibile (i.e. expensive) second class tickets get free wifi as well. Perhaps the two passengers in question had different types of ticket.

 

[AeroSpace]

Am I paranoid in not wanting to use public WiFi, including on the train, out of security concerns? I do use it, but only in conjunction with a VPN, and do get worried when the VPN cuts out as it often does.

This absolutely depends on what you are trying to do.

If you're just looking up train times on National Rail then yes, it's probably paranoid.

If you want to log in to Facebook, Gmail etc then no VPN required as these websites already use SSL/TLS/HTTPS.

If you are worried about others on the WiFi network hacking into your computer then use of a VPN is completely irrelevant.

 

[fowler9]

I've never really been too worried about internet security. I don't think I'm interesting enough for someone to want to hack my computer. The only time I've been financially disadvantaged was when I didn't read Ryanairs website properly and they had off with my money completely legally.