GSM and UMTS on trains

[Amrando]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

When travelling by ICE or IC-trains make sure you take your seat in a car equipped with repeaters so you get a better signal (but don't expect too much 3G coverage, especially on ICE trains which pass many tunnels).

I am definitely familiar with poor coverage on trains. I am a frequent traveler to Japan, and phone and data service on the Shinkansen is similar. Unfortunately even on the vast majority of bullet trains JR and NTTdocomo do not offer network repeaters - only the very newest trains have them installed such as the brand-new N'Ex and Tohoku Hayabusa/Hayate. Otherwise it is very easy to see the train is passing through a city - you can watch signal strength climb from zero to full and fall back down in the space of a few seconds. Or you can try and make your calls during the lightning-fast station stops.

[kuba.g]

Using internet on trains is something with which I have a lot of experience as well, as I mainly travel by train in Europe.

The most interesting fact I have noticed is that the experience with it in Germany is very disappointing (if not the worst...). I have tried out MedionMobile (e-Plus = tragedy), Fonic (O2) and ja! Mobil (T-Mobile). O2 worked nice as long as it had 3G, but on most of the train routes this is not the case and then it jumped back to GPRS. I have found surfing on this GPRS not doable, so I hoped for a significant improvement with T-Mobile which is a 100% EDGE network. However, even on the EDGE network, and even though my mobile phone shows 50% signal, internet just doesn't load.... and this is the case for like 75% of the time.

I have no idea what causes this. I have found Poland's Plus EGDE network to work much better on trains (when there is at least 25% EDGE signal internet just loads, which somehow isn't in Germany.....). The same thing holds for TIM in Italy.