(17 Feb 2014, 9:51 pm)andreos1 wrote They were made aware of the wifi not working on the 4 from day 1 though...
Yes, and that's when Go North East started looking for a fix. It wasn't as simple as one may assume and took a rather long time to actually find out what the problem was. citaro5284 mentioned at the time that three or more parties were involved in fixing the Wi-Fi on buses - you make it sound like GNE simply weren't arsed about fixing the Wi-Fi! There was no workaround - just a fix. The fix itself is actually quite complex and takes a bit of time to perform.
(17 Feb 2014, 9:51 pm)andreos1 wrote To then leave existing vehicles (despite spending thousands of pounds on kit) and concentrate on fixing vehicles that weren't even in the country in October...
Baffling.
Do you not think that's a better idea..? Fixing vehicles before they enter service?
The Drifters were the guinea-pigs, as it were. The fix was first applied to these vehicles and they were monitored for a certain period of time to ensure that the Wi-Fi was indeed working. It wasn't exactly a 'quick fix' and required the buses, one at a time, to be VOR for the day. You'll have seen CatFast101's daily queries at the time...
Customers on the Fab56 and Cobalt Clipper shouldn't be complaining as the Wi-Fi should be working on all vehicles - the fix was applied to these vehicles before they entered service for that very reason. It means that those customers aren't affected and they are unaware of any issues there may have been with the Wi-Fi on buses.
I thought you'd appreciate every vehicle in the fleet being looked at... Certainly not something every company in the world would do to ensure that there are no problems...............
(17 Feb 2014, 9:51 pm)andreos1 wrote In the case of the 4, is it even worth fixing the wifi now? Not sure anybody tries to see if it is working yet, so when (if it does) get fixed, passengers will be so used to not having it, they probably wont test it out.
Go North East has paid for Wi-Fi to be fitted to these vehicles, so yes it is worth fixing - and it will be fixed. Again, I reiterate, the focus has been ensuring that no other new vehicles are affected.
Passengers who always have their Wi-Fi enabled and have connected to one of Go North East's hotspots in the past will automatically connect and they should notice a speedier Internet connection when browsing.