Free Internet comes to all SBB long-distance trains

SBB is bringing free Internet access to all long-distance trains. The start of this offer is planned for the end of 2019. The railroad company has committed to this step vis-à-vis the federal government, as the Handelszeitung writes.

This week, the Federal Council published a response to an interpellation by National Councilor Thomas Ammann (CVP/SG). In it, Ammann complained that there was still no WLAN on SBB trains, unlike on railroads abroad.

In its response to the interpellation, the Federal Council writes that SBB intends to offer free Internet access on all long-distance trains in the procedure for renewing the long-distance concession. As a condition, the Federal Office of Transport has stipulated this in the long-distance concession from December 2019. The concession was awarded in June.

SBB Board of Directors President Monika Ribar surprisingly announced in May that free Wi-Fi would be installed in trains. Before that, SBB had strictly rejected free Internet access on its trains and instead equipped all major stations with WLAN.

Technical implementation still open

At the moment, SBB is leaving the question open as to whether it will be Internet access via WLAN or whether another solution is in the pipeline. The concession merely mentions that the Internet service will be free of charge on all long-distance trains.

When asked by the Keystone-SDA agency, SBB did not provide any details on the technical implementation, as the Handelszeitung continues. The SBB wanted to inform about this before the end of the year.(Barbara Camenzind/Netzwoche)