(The following article by Lisa Vorderbrueggen appeared on the Contra Costa Times website on August 19.)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Imagine punching the time clock when you step on the train rather than wasting all those hours you spend schlepping back and forth to work.
Passengers on the Altamont Commuter Express and Capitol Corridor, train services linking Sacramento and the Central Valley to the Bay Area, next month will test technology offered for the first time in the United States that turns rail cars into rolling offices.
It’s a wireless, on-board network that permits commuters with laptops or handheld devices to gain instant, fast access to the electronic highway while they clickety-clack across the countryside.
Travelers can log on to their company computers, read and respond to e-mail or work with colleagues on critical reports just as though they were sitting at their desks in the office.
“Our customers are tech-savvy, and they have been clamoring for this service,” said Capitols Managing Director Eugene Skoropowski. “We think more folks would get out of their cars if they could work during their commutes.”
He could be onto something.
“I think I’m going to cry, it’s just so beautiful!” Web developer Sasha Akhavi of Oakland wrote on Traintalk, an Internet forum frequented by Capitol Corridor riders.
Akhavi rides daily to his Silicon Valley job and relies on a cellular modem in his laptop, which offers slow response times and cuts out in the dead zones along the route.
“Doing any serious work is a problem,” he said. “I will definitely check out the new technology, see what the reception is like and how much it will cost. It sounds promising.”
Ottawa-based PointShot Wireless introduced the system in the first trains in North America as a free, three-month trial on a Toronto-to-Montreal route in July.
The fledgling company — formed in 2002 — quickly moved into talks with U.S. rail operators and discovered the Bay Area waiting with its modems wide open.
The Northeast may run more trains, but “the Bay Area loves new technology,” explained company president and CEO Shawn Griffin.
Couple techno-appeal with the fact that wireless cards now come as standard equipment on most notebook and handheld computers, and the market appears poised to explode, Griffin said.
Wireless Internet service has appeared in airports and hotels and famous-name eateries such as Starbucks and McDonald’s.
But Wi-Fi, as the industry calls it, may be an especially good fit for inter-city train service because passengers have both time and space to pull out their computers.
Here’s how it works on trains: The Internet link is transmitted to an onboard server from a satellite via a high-speed cellular tie while the server talks to commuters’ laptops and handhelds throughout the rail car with the aid of a wireless fidelity network.
It provides a much faster connection than cellular modems, and all it takes to use it is a wireless fidelity card, available for about $50 for laptops that lack it.
ACE and Capitol Corridor will offer the service on one car in one train during the free, three-month trial period.
If it works and commuters embrace PointShot, the operators will expand it to more cars and charge a fee, at least $10 more a month.
ACE plans to launch the test in early September; Capitol Corridor will follow a few weeks later. Watch the operators’ Web sites — www.acerail.com and www.amtrakcapitols.com — for details.