Network Rail has announced its plans to roll out ‘high speed mobile broadband’ across its infrastructure. They have announced that they will be spending £1.9 billion upgrading its infrastructure to ensure that 70% of its train passengers will able to access the faster broadband by 2019.
The Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, stated that this ‘marks the beginning of the end of poor coverage on our railways’.
This plan means that passengers will be able to watch streamed videos on their mobiles, the new fibre optic network being installed by Network Rail will be able to handle up to 192,000 gigabit per second of data once the upgrade has been completed. Considering that the Rail Safety and Standards Board has forecasted that the telecommunication demand on trains could rise to 200 gigabit per second by 2018, it means that the 192,000 gigabit per second being installed should be able to cater for the ongoing future demand as well with plenty of spare capacity.
It is not just the fibre optic cable that will result in improvements, Network Rail are also increasing the number of mobile phone masts to fill in gaps in signal coverage and installing signal boosters within train carriages so that passengers can benefit from their investment.
These improvements to our train lines will result in more people using their mobiles whilst travelling, especially when they are travelling to and from work as the majority of people do everyday using our train lines. This means that people will be able to use their time more productively, whether that be doing extra work, ticking off jobs on their to do list or allowing them more time for leisure and relaxation by allowing faster streaming of TV programmes, books and music.
This will boost the already high and increasing number of people viewing sites like yours on mobiles, this increased use will drive the demand for mobile compatible websites and see companies without mobile enabled sites loose out of sales and visitors. The need for responsive design has become even more apparent.
A number of companies have already adapted their sites for mobile use and indeed Google has just made their site fully responsive just last week. Responsive design is no longer optional, for your site to continue to fulfil the needs of its visitors and create sales then sites need to be responsive.
Upgrade your site today, contact ExtraDigital and see how they can make your site fully responsive in just 4 weeks. Call today on +44 (0) 1227 68 68 98 or visit our own fully responsive site, www.extradigital.co.uk and see what we can do for you.
You can read more about this story at the BBC.
