Investigations for broadband internet within high-speed trains

Abstract. Broadband IP-based multimedia services are rapidly growing and there is the trend to use these services everywhere. Due to the fact that passengers in long distance high speed trains have a very comfortable environment to use their own terminal equipment, e.g. laptops with IEEE802.11×WLAN capability, it seems to be very promising to deliver broadband internet into trains. The challenge is the land-train connection where a high bit data rate link, e.g. 1Mbps in average in up- and downlink, has to be provided to enable several users within the train broadband internet access at the same time even at high speeds of the train. This paper describes a systematic approach starting at basic propagation measurements in a typical train environment and ending up with lab investigations by means of hardware channel simulation for different existing radio technologies which are candidates for the land-train connection.