 | By Woody Leonhard A few weeks ago, I found myself in Vancouver, British Columbia — scurrying like mad to make a meeting in Seattle — when I bumped into a technology I had never seen before. Travel far from home frequently brings big surprises, but I was shocked — stunned — to discover that my shuttle bus offered fast, free Wi-Fi, for the whole 140-mile trip, right there in my seat. |
Wi-Fi boards the bus, train, and airplane
As I boarded the shuttle bus in Vancouver, I noted the “Free Wi-Fi” sign and expected to squeeze out a small dribble of data as the shuttle approached its planned stops. I popped open my laptop, made a beeline for Outlook, downloaded a sizable crop of e-mail, flipped over to Firefox, and started catching up on the news.
As the bus departed the Ballantyne Cruise Terminal, my connection didn’t hiccup — not even a little bit — and the link kept on going as we headed down the soaked British Columbia coastline. While the bus sat in the perpetually clogged U.S. Customs line at the border, I fired off a series of messages from Canada and the States, keeping my cohorts in Seattle apprised of my plight in real time.
There were no electronic hitches at the border: the connection just kept working. While I wouldn’t call the Wi-Fi link’s speed “blazing,” it was certainly adequate for my needs.
If you haven’t yet used Wi-Fi while in a bus or a train, you may soon. Greyhound announced its BoltBus service back in March, complete with Wi-Fi between New York and Washington, D.C. Many metropolitan bus lines in the U.S. now offer Wi-Fi. Of course, Europeans have been Wi-Fi-ing on buses and trains for years: the Hansa Buss between Estonia and Latvia, for example, runs all Wi-Fi, all the time.
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