WiFi on Trains Speed-Tested – Compare Each Country in Europe

It’s as if it was announced just in time for this year’s Traincomms Conference (it wasn’t), the differing standards of on-board WiFi connectivity across Europe have been measured by Ookla Speedtest®. And some countries have got more to crow about than others…

Ookla, which is a division of US-based online publishing giant Ziff- Davis, used crowd-sourced feedback on data speeds from passengers actually travelling on trains as they rumbled across the continent and the British Isles.

According to the online research company’s figures, Sweden sits atop the league table of download speed to trains, with an impressive 64.58Mbps median speed in Q2 of this year. Switzerland comes in second with 29.79Mbps and Ireland in a jump up from recent years third with 26.33Mbps.

Meanwhile, Spain 1.45Mbps, the UK 1.09Mbps and the Netherlands 0.41Mbps, languish at the foot of the table. To rub it in, the boffins at Ookla calculated that the poorest performing countries showed download speeds around 158 times slower than top-performing Sweden. Ookla put Europe’s country-level median download speed at 7.59Mbps.

The research company puts the difference partly down to ageing WiFi technology being used on many rail networks – a mix of old standards and spectrum. Across the European markets studied, nearly two in five connections still run on WiFi 4 (a standard dating back to the dark-ages of 2009), and ~22% use the lower-capacity, more congestion- and interference-prone 2.4 GHz band. The UK still sees over half of all rail connections on WiFi 4, with 38% on 2.4 GHz. In Poland, rail connections remain almost entirely on WiFi 4 and the 2.4 GHz band.

However, Ookla concedes that the real stumbling block is backhaul. Comparisons within individual countries show substantial improvement in service if 5GHz is used for transmission rather than 2.4GHz. In Germany this change-up can lead to an improvement of 328%.

The study points out that speedier download speeds are achieved if national administrations legislate for mobile networks to be regarded as core rail infrastructure. If rail organisations are prepared to invest in dedicated trackside systems, higher-order MIMO with multi-operator bonded train-mounted antennas, and RF-permeable rolling-stock window retrofits then dramatically faster download speeds inevitably follow.

The shining example of how to boost train connectivity, reportedly, is Sweden. Ookla claims this is down to the government’s ’s strong hand in forcing MNOs to provide coverage along rail corridors. In 2022, for example, the national telecoms regulator gave €2 million to Telia and Net4Mobility to provide better in-tunnel coverage. Additionally, rail-specific coverage and capacity obligations were integrated into the 2023 Swedish spectrum auctions. Train companies in Sweden have also been granted access to mobile sites, fibre and power along rights-of-way.

It remains to be seen how far fellow rail and telecom regulators will follow the Swedish model.

Ways to improve WiFi to train services, including LEO satellite-delivered broadband, on-board WiFi and trackside communications systems will all feature heavily at this year’s Traincomms Conference in London (www.Traincomms.com ).

The Main Sponsors for Traincomms 2025 are Icomera and Huber+Suhner, Westermo, Antonics, Galgus and Nomad Digital are also Sponsoring the Conference.

Xentrans, CGI, and Lantech are the Expo Sponsors

For more information on attending the 2025 Conference please contact [email protected]

The full programme for this year’s Traincomms Conference is available here: https://www.traincomms.com/#content2b