The station has announced that it will take another two to three years of tests before they can surf from its TGV...

To surf the Internet quietly installed in the seat of its TGV, it will take until 2012 at best. Guillaume Pepy, SNCF president, a beautiful welcome the fact that his company will be the first worldwide to offer such a service in a high speed train. The service "Connecting TGV was still overdue result. The first tests took place in 2007, and Thalys, the TGV-East Europeans, already offer such a service since May 2008.

The technique is well established, however, communication is from a satellite antenna, which moves according to the position of the train, with WiFi and 3G support (for the stations, tunnels etc ....). Behind, a bay of servers connected to WiFi hotspots located in each of the oars, on which users connect.

The problem is rather the establishment of such a trade offer. If for Thalys, with its 26 trains and public rather professional choices were simple, satisfy the millions of passengers, many different profiles, of 450 TGV trains is another matter. Nevertheless, taken over 5 years to find an answer to a need that existed well before, it's still very long!

The SNCF said it spent 50 million euros for the equipment of the three tests and trains 10 to 20 million for research and development. A new series of tests will place in early 2010 on the 52 trains of the TGV Est. If the transaction is approved commercial deployment in 2012 or 2013, it will still wait for each train is equipped with the necessary technical devices...