April/May 2008

Bus and coach operator FirstGroup is thought to be the first company in Wales to offer a mobile broadband Internet facility to customers using its coaches - and one of the first in Britain.

The facility has been introduced by First Cymru on its shuttle service between Swansea and Cardiff - a journey that takes about an hour - and in the first weeks it is said to have been used by 'hundreds' of travellers.

The company is using the Moovbox M100 mobile broadband gateway from Moovera, which provides Wi-Fi Internet access at broadband speeds up to 1.8Mbps throughout the journey. This works in conjunction with the next-generation 3G HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) mobile broadband network from Vodafone UK.

As part of the package Moovera has also supplied real-time GPS-based tracking for vehicle location and schedule adherence monitoring by FirstGroup itself.

 

The Moovbox mobile gateway is a ruggedised Wi-Fi access point and cellular router, offering multiple wide area network (WAN) radios for automatic 'failover' between carriers, and has built-in GPS for real-time positioning.

Moovbox products can also offer secure Ethernet for IP-CCTV, DVR and telematics equipment with remote in-bound access for device control.