Irish Rail to introduce free Wi-Fi on Dublin-Cork route

Irish rail is to introduce free Wi-Fi on all Dublin-Cork services, the company announced today.

The company tested a limited free Wi-Fi service on the Dublin-Cork route in 2010 of which it described the uptake as “enthusiastic”.

Irish rail said,

given the nature of the trial, and the fact that it was restricted to selected services, the usage of Wi-Fi was extremely high. Many customers would not have known the service they were boarding had Wi-Fi but still availed of it in heavy numbers. As well as offering increasingly competitive journey times, we can offer productive time to our customers – for work, reading, or viewing – and the roll-out of Wi-Fi will enhance this dramatically. Customers will be able access the Internet to check their email, surf the web, play games and connect to their corporate network. The system will be available for everyone to use once they have a Wi-Fi enabled device such as a Laptop, iPhone or smart phone.

Free Wi-Fi will become available before spring 2011 on 67 carriages and is expected to be extended to other routes later in the year.