National rail provider Amtrak has expanded free Wi-Fi to 12 of its most popular Northeast routes, as it aims to lure passengers away from planes and buses this holiday season.
Access to AmtrakConnect, the company's free Wi-Fi service, has been extended to its most popular route, Virginia to Boston. Additional routes are New York-Albany-Buffalo, New York-Philadelphia-Harrisburg, Pa., New York-Charlotte, Boston-Portland, New York-Rutland, Vt., Washington-St. Albans, Vt., and the New Haven-Springfield Shuttle.
On some trains Amtrak added connection through a hotspot in select cars, such as aboard the New York-Montreal, New York-Toronto, New York-Savannah, Ga., and New York-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh routes.
Previously, free Wi-Fi was limited to less popular Northeast routes and a few West coast routes. Amtrak caps file downloads to no more than 10MB.
"Delivered free of charge, this basic Wi-Fi service supports general Web-browsing activities. Due to limited bandwidth onboard the trains, our Wi-Fi does not support high-bandwidth actions such as streaming music, streaming video or downloading large files," it says on its Web site.
The next expansion of Wi-Fi will be on state-supported Amtrak services in California by the end of 2011, including on Capitol Corridor, Pacific Surfliner, and San Joaquin trains. When that occurs, 75 percent of all Amtrak passengers will have access to on-board Wi-Fi, the company said.
Over the summer, Gogo Wireless announced its first foray into wireless movie streaming, signing up American Airlines as its first partner.