Noticed yesterday that the Ashington fleet have had their vinyls advertising the free WiFi removed/cut. I assume this marks the end of WiFi being offered as standard on Arriva services.

Several E400MMCs going around with only half a vinyl where they've cut the "Free WiFi" part off...

(12 Apr 2024, 7:10 am)omnicity4659 wrote Noticed yesterday that the Ashington fleet have had their vinyls advertising the free WiFi removed/cut. I assume this marks the end of WiFi being offered as standard on Arriva services.

Several E400MMCs going around with only half a vinyl where they've cut the "Free WiFi" part off...

There might have fallen off with all the terrible weather we been having just lately ?

(12 Apr 2024, 7:10 am)omnicity4659 wrote Noticed yesterday that the Ashington fleet have had their vinyls advertising the free WiFi removed/cut. I assume this marks the end of WiFi being offered as standard on Arriva services.

Several E400MMCs going around with only half a vinyl where they've cut the "Free WiFi" part off...

WiFi has indeed been removed from Arriva's fleet

I know some will disagree but it won't be missed by the vast majority of people. Data plans have changed so much over the past 5 years or so it's become redundant and the mobile plans will always be much faster/better than the bus WiFi which is usually stupidly restricted to something like 250MB of data anyway which is pretty pointless.

Just an expensive gimmick nowadays.

Sockets are no better on urban routes as by the time you pissed about getting your wire out etc, you'll be getting off. Definitely space for them on sub-urban / rural routes though where people are generally on 30 mins+ like Ashington's routes to be fair.

Interesting that whilst Arriva are removing, GNE are adding it to their pre-loved vehicles. I wonder if there will be an exodus of passengers, in the same vein that we've been told wi-fi attracts passengers....?

(12 Apr 2024, 1:29 pm)Chris 1 wrote Interesting that whilst Arriva are removing, GNE are adding it to their pre-loved vehicles.  I wonder if there will be an exodus of passengers, in the same vein that we've been told wi-fi attracts passengers....?

Stagecoach turned it off on their fleet (except for a small number of exceptions - locally, only the 'Tees Flex' Sprinters retain it) back in 2020 when Covid hit - has there been a major exodus of passengers from their services because of that........

(12 Apr 2024, 1:29 pm)Chris 1 wrote I wonder if there will be an exodus of passengers, in the same vein that we've been told wi-fi attracts passengers....?

I think it probably did attract people 10 years ago, but as Storx said earlier majority of people have fairly decent data plans now. For short hops too, by the time you've connected you'll pretty much be getting off again.

While I rarely use the free WiFi on board, on account of the limit being hilariously low, it has come in handy a few times when I've had to quickly send an email on my laptop and I was running low on battery on my phone so didn't want to tether.

Having said that, I've had unlimited data on my phone for over a decade now, so I can't really say I'd miss it!

(12 Apr 2024, 1:32 pm)Kuyoyo wrote Stagecoach turned it off on their fleet (except for a small number of exceptions - locally, only the 'Tees Flex' Sprinters retain it) back in 2020 when Covid hit - has there been a major exodus of passengers from their services because of that........

I think it was tongue in cheek from Chris1.
Not sure it really was the attraction back then that operators said or thought it would be.

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(12 Apr 2024, 2:06 pm)streetdeckfan wrote While I rarely use the free WiFi on board, on account of the limit being hilariously low, it has come in handy a few times when I've had to quickly send an email on my laptop and I was running low on battery on my phone so didn't want to tether.

Having said that, I've had unlimited data on my phone for over a decade now, so I can't really say I'd miss it!

But what about the chargers?

(12 Apr 2024, 3:03 pm)Andreos1 wrote I think it was tongue in cheek from Chris1.
Not sure it really was the attraction back then that operators said or thought it would be.

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But what about the chargers?

They're so underpowered it doesn't even maintain the current charge never mind add charge!