Romania is 7th in a ranking of the fastest Wi-Fi connections available onboard trains in 18 countries in Europe and Asia, according to an analysis by internet speed testing service Ookla.
With a median download speed of 12.46 Mbps, Romania offers Wi-Fi more than twice as fast as Italy (4.78 Mbps) and Poland (4.72 Mbps), and 12 times faster compared to trains in the United Kingdom (1.09 Mbps).
Compared to the country in last place, Norway, the Wi-Fi available on trains in Romania is more than 30 times faster, Profit.ro reported.
The fastest Wi-Fi, however, is offered by Sweden, which leads the ranking by far, with a median download speed of 64.58 Mbps, followed by Switzerland (29.79 Mbps), Ireland (26.33 Mbps), and the Czech Republic (23.36 Mbps).
Swedish trains also have the fastest Wi-Fi for uploading pages and files, with a median upload speed of 54.95 Mbps, more than 14 times faster compared to those in Romania (3.83 Mbps).
Ookla notes that the speed and stability of Wi-Fi connections on trains in Europe and Asia vary significantly depending on network infrastructure, bandwidth, and Wi-Fi standards used, and that countries which treat mobile connections onboard trains as railway infrastructure and invest in them offer considerably better experiences for passengers.
Sweden’s Wi-Fi connection performance has improved drastically since last year, after two years of stagnating at 2 Mbps for download and around 0.7–1.9 Mbps for upload.
Offering strong connections on trains is a challenge.
“Rail operators view onboard connectivity as a lever for revenue, loyalty, and operations, while policymakers increasingly frame it as part of the digital backbone of national transport systems. The engineering reality is harsher: a train carriage is a metal Faraday cage moving through tunnels, cuttings, and rural not-spots, where cellular handovers are frequent and fragile,” the analysis notes.
However, faster connections are underway in most countries, as new technologies allow for faster connections even while moving.
(Photo source: Cunaplus | Dreamstime.com)
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