19 January 2009

WiFi Rail announces execution of BART contract.

Press Release
WiFi Rail Installing the First US High-Speed Mobile WiFi Network on BART
San Francisco, January 19, 2009: WiFi Rail Inc. and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) have finalized a 20-year agreement to provide high speed mobile Wi-Fi access throughout the BART transit system and on all BART commuter trains.

WiFi Rail Inc. has designed and engineered a high-bandwidth network to provide mobile WiFi access throughout mass transit environments, with special focus on commuter rail lines and trains.  The company has demonstrated consistent network speeds capable of providing video to and from the train, Internet VPN, VOIP, train telemetry and a host of other applications that a giant wireless LAN can offer. The company installed a demonstration network on 2.2 miles of the BART Hayward test track and in the four downtown San Francisco stations.  During the year of testing, more than 15,000 consumers registered and used the system more than 85,000 times, including live streaming video from the trains, proving the utility of the network.  Tests on trains moving at over 81 MPH have consistently demonstrated upload and download speeds in excess of 15Mbps.

Service on BART is scheduled to begin on selected segments during 2009. Four downtown San Francisco stations and some segments of the tunnels are already fully functional, and have been providing premium service free to subscribers for the past year.
“We are thrilled to showcase our technology in the network designed for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system, it is a great partnership,” said Cooper Lee, CEO and inventor of the patent pending technology. “This is a unique opportunity to demonstrate what high-speed WiFi access, interconnected by a huge fiber-optic backbone, can mean to a transit system and its passengers.”
The WiFi Rail deployment in the BART system will become the largest high bandwidth mobile Internet LAN in the United States. Completion of network construction is planned for the end of 2010.

The WiFi Rail network design can be expanded to provide a parallel network capable of a wide variety of network functions to support public safety and security needs, including those of Homeland Security.   Other transit operations, such as customer information services, and customer train car telemetry applications for maintenance management can be expanded through the network deployment. The WiFi Rail network utilizes standards-based technologies which include a collapsed fiber-optic backbone, Cisco wireless Access Points, Routers, and Switches, and Apple OS-X servers.

Demographic studies indicate that approximately 71% of commuter rail travelers carry a laptop, PDA or WiFi capable device and would utilize the services of mobile wireless connections. Annual growth of WiFi capable handsets has been projected at 1300% by 2010. With the explosion of data accessed by devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch, currently estimated to be 30 to 50 times that of legacy smart phone devices, and more WiFi capable devices on the way, mobile WiFi networks will be a key component of a connected world. 
The WiFi Rail business model is based on network subscriptions - daily, monthly, and annually -as well as technology license arrangements.

WiFI Rail, Inc., founded in late 2005, has developed a high-speed wireless network design that is protected by pending patents in the US and abroad. The WiFi Rail broadband wireless solution is uniquely tailored to address specific technical needs of commuter rail systems. WiFi Rail has recently become a Cisco Advanced Technology Development Partner (ATDP) and is working tightly with the Advanced Technology and Research group allowing WiFi Rail to further enhance the underlying technology of the mobile network.

Website: www.wifirail.com
Contact: Michael Hernandez, Chief Marketing Officer, WiFi Rail, Inc.
Phone: 916-803-5435   Email: mhernandez@wifirail.net