Mobile working to Cannes

I decided to take the train to Global Messaging 2008 in Cannes,France. Last year I did it overnight which was sort of fun. This year I'm heading down during the day and seeing whether it's possible to do a days work while I spend the day travelling.

So armed with a my Sony Vaio, Vodafone USB Modem and BlackBerry I attempted to spend the day travelling but so that no one would notice.

3 trains required (if you ignore 2 stop on the RER in Paris):

1. Nottingham to London St Pancras
2. London St Pancras to Paris Gare de Lyon
3. Paris Gare de Lyon to Cannes

Nottingham to London - East Midlands Trains

This first leg is well known to me. I was able to use the power point to keep my laptop battery topped up but no WiFi and mobile coverage is shocking as usual. I've pretty much got used to not being able to do anything connected while on the train to/from London. That said my BlackBerry does an excellent job of exchanging emails when coverage allows.

Same goes for voice calls. Pointless trying to have a conversation.

It's always perplexed me as to why the mobile network operators have not invested in coverage for train lines. Little sardine cans of punters desperate to be communicate or consume content because there's nothing else to do.

conclusion: 3/10 great to have power, connectivity shocking

London to Paris - Eurostar

Aarrgh no power. Luckily I've invested in another battery for my laptop as the spare battery that came with my now 2 year old Vaio couldn't make it to Paris (the original battery gave up long ago). I guess though that a lot people's laptops will survive the 2hr journey so this shouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

I remember when Eurostar first opened and the trains seemed so glamorous, now they just seem tired and sadly lacking in basic facilities. Power points being one.

If they are trying to provide a business service then power is a must and I think WiFi would be a key asset. GNER (now National Express) seem to have done a great job on the East Coast Line, why not a premium route like London - Paris.

However this was when the Vodafone modem came to the fore, especially on the French side. I got 3G coverage almost all the way from Calais to Paris. I actually managed to use some web applications. Properly review some emails, respond completely. It was like being at my desk at home.

Voice calls no problem.

conclusion: 7/10 connectivity pretty good though WiFi would be beter, could really do with power

Paris to Cannes

This was going to be the real test. The first 2 legs are less than or about the 2 hour mark. If all else failed you could probably catch up with things at a coffee shop at one of the stations. 5 hours of whizzing through the French countryside was really going to put this experiment to the test, and it did.

I had high hopes for this train trip. The French being well known for their super fast train service, tearing round the country brimming with socialist pride. I imagined it would be well setup for the travelling business person.

I booked way ahead so travelled first class and was greeted by a nice big seat on the top deck (thought that might be better for mobile coverage) with my own power point.

No WiFi again, but as we left Paris I was hopeful as 3G coverage remained but this soon gave way to 2G, which in turn gave way to very patchy indeed. For large chunks of the journey it was unworkable. Especially as it seemed to stop connecting automatically, maybe that's a roaming setting.

Voice calls were also tricky, especially given they seem to be frowned upon in the carriage. Nothing like a mobile phone etiquette faux-pas in a foreign country to endear yourself with your fellow passengers.

conclusion: 6/10 power and seat great, data coverage varied

So is it workable? Certainly Eurostar, though more on the French side than the British. Given they've shortened that bit recently, I guess it's less of a problem ;-). The key at the moment is to know your route and know how to work round it's foibles.

Having used the WiFi on the East Coast (London to Edinburgh) line it's difficult to understand why other rail operators aren't putting it in across their fleet. You look in any rail carriage these days and the number of laptops as just mushroomed. Couple that with WiFi capable phones and PDAs and there's an army of people that would be quite prepared to pay an additional charge for WiFi while they travel.

I might be getting a little carried away, but I wonder if the government has any view on the national productivity hit of having people stuck on trains, unable to access their work. Could a government subsidy drive adoption as well as our GDP?

Vaio WiFi woes

I have a Sony Vaio SZ1VP Laptop which I've owned since May'ish last year. It's a lovely compact machine with a glorious screen, fantastic battery life and was a completely indulgent purchase. We buy Dell machines as a rule at Esendex and my Latitude D400 was coming to the end of it's useful life. The company was doing well, we'd reached a major milestone and Julian and I felt it was time to reward ourselves. I had a complete nightmare with mine, having 3 different machines shipped out. I was going to Australia to visit our office out there shortly after I received the first one. I ended up taking one with a french keyboard as that was all they had across Europe at the time. Typing was fine as long as I didn't look down! Since then everything has been pretty much fine, apart from the networking. I've always suspected something dodgy with the networking and specifically the WiFi card which it reports as an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG. Every so often it just won't talk to WiFi hotspots and access points. Further, on some access points, I can't successfully establish a VPN connection using the Cisco VPN Client. Given that most of these WiFi points are advertising Intel compatibility, I'm a little perplexed and a lot infuriated. At our holiday apartment in Melbourne they provide WiFi Internet access and low and behold the ****** thing won't connect. The company the apartment owner used was Azure Wireless who seem to be a specialist hot spot provider in Australia. On the card in the apartment was a card with their support number on it. Thinking I had nothing to lose and expecting to get short shrift from an off-shore call centre, I called them. I turned out to be completely wrong. The support person was knowledgable and geared his help to my technical ability rather than the lowest common denominator, as is usually the case. He quickly diagnosed the problem, suggested I call reception for a wireless bridge. This duly came, I plugged it in and it worked first time. I have had this problem before so, lovely as my laptop is, it's a bit lacking in the wireless department and I think PC Card WiFi adaptor might be in order. Just got to find one that's compatible with everything. At the time I bought the Vaio, a good friend of mine was waxing lyrical about Toshibas. I wish I'd listened.