Superfast WiFi on SWT route

Forty miles of South Western Railway route will be upgraded to new superfast WiFi next year, in the first venture of its kind in the UK.

More than 100 trains have so far been equipped with antennae to handle 5G technology when it becomes available between Earlsfield and Basingstoke. The first series of rail-5G poles have been installed by Network Rail and its partner company evo-rail, the telecoms division of FirstGroup.

The rollout follows a successful pilot scheme on SWR’s Island Line on the Isle of Wight, which showed that rail-5G solution can consistently deliver one gigabit per second to a moving train.

The technology will enable large files to be downloaded to laptops at 50 times the current average speed.