London North Eastern Railway (LNER) has announced an Edgecasting trial which allows passengers to stream from ITV Hub without impacting the trains Wi-Fi capacity. It is now on three electric Azuma trains which run between London King's Cross and Edinburgh.
According to data collected by London North Eastern Railway, 69 percent of customers said that good Wi-Fi was taken into thought when deciding how to travel, with business travellers being at 79 percent.
When there is low quality Wi-Fi, 76 percent of passengers stated that they change to use their own 4G or hotspot, and a third of people stopped using their device.
To help solve this issue, London North Eastern Railway has partnered up with Netskrt systems for the trial. Customers on the trains will be able to use ITV Hub through logging in to the onboard Wi-Fi.
Shows are uploaded when they are available on the Hub to a cloud while on the move, meaning that the catalogue is always being updated.
Danny Gonzalez, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at LNER, said: “Customers are at the centre of our innovation journey, and we are constantly looking for ways to enhance the digital experience LNER delivers. We know how frustrating it can be to have poor connectivity and whilst there are continued efforts to improve network services across the UK, this transformational trial directly addresses the issue.
“Edgecasting will dramatically improve onboard entertainment for our customers – critically, without eating into the Wi-Fi bandwidth of our business customers. We hope this first-of-its-kind trial lays the foundations for the technology to be adopted across all UK rail operators in the future to enhance customers' experiences.”
