Virgin Trains are to offer it's passengers Wi-Fi broadband on it's West coast line.

Users would connect using 802.11c Wi-fi connections which would them be relayed using WiMax to trackside base stations every few miles along the route. Virgin chose WiMax as it offers speeds of up to 49Mbps and has less latency that satellite/3G/GPRS connections such as those used by GNER.  HSDPA would be used as a backup for any gaps in the WiMax service.

While all the talk of 49Mbps and low latency way sound like a good thing, there is a problem. The trackside WiMax stations will be connected with a 2Mbps ADSL connection to the internet, which when shared with other passengers isn't so great. So why not a DSLMax connection? We'll leave you to guess that one....