Wireless broadband in trains in a today's topic of interest for many technology vendors and entrepeneurs. Railway travelers are very enthusiastic about these services.. However, it is not so obvious to make the businesscase go and ly. There are several reasons for this, the first one is obvious: where so the revenues come from? Do railway travelers want to pay for these services and how many users are expected on a daily basis? The second reason concerns technology. Broadband technology such as WiMAX is not yet mature. In this paper, a strategy is proposed for introducing wireless broadband, i.e. internet broadband access in trains, taking into account both the Commercial Portfolio (CPF) and the added services to end-users and business support processes. Broadband applications in trains can be seen as an extra services making public transport more attractive. Dynamic traffic information makes traveling times more predictive; time is better utilized with an office VPN connection or with streaming entertainment. In addition, a combination can be made with the railway operator's business processes for example remote surveillance (vandalism, terrorist threats) and the online engineer. Finally, motorways and railway sections are often co-located. It is possible to strategically place base stations that services can be provided to other modalities and market segments. We will demonstrate a novel independent test and its performance from which new results are presented. The test set-up deals with both layer-2 and -3 handover from different vendors, in which the focus is specifically on the deals performance of centralized versus decentralized intelligence in combination with 802.11i security mechanisms. Furthermore,a business case scenario is presented, based on a net-present value calculation. We conclude that there are definitely business case scenario is presented, based on a net-present value calculation. We conclude that there are definitely business opportunities for broadband applications in trains!@en

Wireless broadband in trains is a today's topic of interest for many technology vendors and entrepreneurs. Railway travelers are very enthusiastic about these services. However, it is not so obvious to make the business case go and fly. There are several reasons for this, the first one is obvious: where do the reveneous come from? Do railsway travelers want to pay for these services and how many users are expected on a daily basis? The second reasson concerns technolgoy. Broadband technology such as WiMAX is not yet mature. In this paper, a strategy is proposed for introducing wireless broadband, i.e. internet broadband access in trains, taking into account both the Commercial Portfolio (CPF) and teh Technical Portfolio (TPF). Considering the CPF, there exist several opportunities to create value-added services to end-users and business support processes. Broadband applications in trains can be seen as an extra services making public transport more attractive. In this paper we will demonstrate an independent test and its performance from which new results are presented. The test set-up deals with both layer-2 and -3 handover from different vendors, in which the focus is specifically on the performance of centralized versus decentralized intelligence in combination with 802.11i security mechanisms. Furthermore, a business case scenario is presented, based on a net-present value calculation. We conclude that ther are definitely business opportunities for broadband applications in trains!@en