VIA Rail WiFi suckage

VIA Rail offers WiFi service aboard its trains. I’m on my way to Montreal for a business trip, so I thought I’d try it out. My conclusion: stay away!

It seems that VIA is partnered with a company called Parsons to provide the WiFi aboard the train. Judging by the latency, I can only assume that it is a satellite link. Check out what kind of latency you get for $8.95 per 24 hours of access:

C:>tracert aphrodite.aquezada.com

Tracing route to aphrodite.aquezada.com [216.235.8.211]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     2 ms  VIA_3454 [192.168.134.1]
  2     *        *     3071 ms  10.0.15.1
  3  4033 ms  3878 ms  3684 ms  link1.parsons.com [206.219.255.131]
  4   987 ms     *     1154 ms  66.147.156.114
  5   758 ms  1586 ms   798 ms  ge-5-0.a0.dlls.broadwing.net [216.140.4.173]
  6   899 ms  1457 ms   739 ms  216.140.4.158
  7   697 ms  1180 ms   339 ms  216.140.4.170
  8   633 ms   640 ms   859 ms  te-8-3-73.car4.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.63.9]
  9  2958 ms  2638 ms  1620 ms  ae-13-69.car3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.19.5]
 10  1308 ms  1136 ms  1258 ms  4.68.63.162
 11  2126 ms  2132 ms  2962 ms  5.icore1.CT8-Chicago.teleglobe.net [206.82.141.2
9]
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13   944 ms  1572 ms  4343 ms  if-15-0-0-15.mcore3.TTT-Scarborough.teleglobe.ne
t [216.6.98.49]
 14   887 ms   937 ms  1901 ms  if-15-0.core1.TNK-Toronto.teleglobe.net [216.6.9
8.54]
 15  1235 ms   477 ms   320 ms  ix-1-151.core1.TNK-Toronto.teleglobe.net [216.6.
112.22]
 16  1120 ms  1936 ms  2679 ms  204.16.202.173
 17     *     3228 ms  1316 ms  216.235.0.236
 18  1519 ms  1882 ms  3716 ms  h216-235-8-211.host.egate.net [216.235.8.211]

Trace complete.

Unless you’re just doing SSH — save your money!