I went to the ICANN meeting in Paris last week with the TGV. It was the second time I took this high speed train. The experience is quite enjoyable. places Luxembourg two hours away from Paris. Previously, that was three and a half hours. So, this is very good progress. The beast travels at 300 km/h, and even reached 574 km/h on test runs.
The SNCF is planning to deploy wireless Internet access in the TGV later this year. It won’t be cheap, but if you really need it, I guess that will not make much of a difference. The only things that are missing are power sockets. Travelling two hours with WIFI on would certainly suck all the power out of the battery of even the less power hungry laptop.
Actually the TGV has work spaces with power sockets, for a total of 8 people. Elsewhere in the train, there are none. This is quite astonishing for a brand new train, less than two years old. Even my commuter train has one power socket every two seats. It looks unlikely that the SNCF will have a huge demand for in-train Internet if the passengers cannot use their computer.
Update: Thomas Roessler twittered me that TGV first class has power outlets at the seats. I never travel first class so I did not know. My point is still valid, though. If SNCF is only counting on first class passengers to buy Internet access from them, their market will be rather small.
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