SE23 Forum

Forest Hill is one of the first 12 Overground stations to get free wifi.

TechWeek Europe wrote:

The Cloud To Supply Free Wi-Fi To London Overground

Passengers will receive 60 minutes of free Wi-Fi Internet at London�s railway stations
On March 26, 2012 by Steve McCaskill

Passengers on the London Overground will soon receive free Internet access after a deal was struck to provide Wi-Fi connections at all 56 stations on the network.

The news comes less than two weeks after Virgin Media announced that it had signed a deal to install Wi-Fi services to 120 London Underground stations in time for the Olympic Games this summer.

Going overground

Hotspots will be installed at 12 stations to begin with; New Cross Gate, Forest Hill, West Croydon, Norwood Junction, Surrey Quays, Dalston, Wapping, Hackney Central, Kensington Olympia and Shepherd�s Bush, with rollout to the rest of the network completed by the end of this year.

The wireless hotspots will be operated by The Cloud and users will need to register just once to receive their sixty minutes of free access each day. The service will remain free to use after the Olympics, unlike the London Underground Wi-Fi service.

After the games have concluded, only Virgin Mobile customers will continue to be able to use the [Underground] service free of charge, with users of other networks subject a Pay-As-You-Go payment model. Bidding for the service began last March and is part of Mayor of London Boris Johnson�s plans to bring Wi-Fi to public transport in London, including buses.

As reported by Michael

Wifi (The-Cloud) is now available at Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park station, as well as others along the line.
It takes a couple of minutes to register but it seems to provide nice fast connection speeds after that.

Great stuff, I shall be sure to get registered. Thumbup

Great - in theory. Have found in practice that having to login each time on a webpage makes accessing the service a little cumbersome. To boot, unless you have done this, the existing internet connection breaks, as the WiFi takes precedence but does not actually supply internet access until you login.

I suspect that the story is a bit different if you are a Sky subscriber or somesuch. I realise that you cannot expect much for free but am wondering why they even bothered.

Seems a shame to me that this wasn't done like the Virgin Media WiFi on the Underground. Or am I missing something?

Is anyone at the station long enough to make it worth using the wifi? I'm usually there no more than five to ten minutes (possible 15 at the very outside if I've mistimed a Victoria train).

You shouldn't need to register every time - just click Continue Online.

I find it's worth it despite short duration - quick download of emails, tweets, check the running of the train maybe, that kind of thing. Can also pick it up at HoP and Brockley on the way in...

When you say click Continue Online, is this on a web page or connection settings? Am using an iPhone.

Web page. Open Safari as you arrive at the station and as the page refreshes it'll take you to the Cloud page. Continue Online and you're away.

Thanks but I don't get that, I have to login each time. It may be because I am not a Sky or 4uWifi user.

In any case, having to open a web page in order to turn on the internet is not helpful. I would have to do this every time I was at the station, even if I didn't want a web page, so that other services like email continue to function.

Have had some email correspondence with the WiFi support channel and though there is an app, rather confusingly called FastConnect, which should fix all this it doesn't. It may one day (according to The Cloud). In the meantime, have told device to forget this network as it is worse than useless for me right now. YMMV.

You seem to want a lot from a service that's entirely free.

The Cloud's service is normally ok on a smartphone. Once logging in, you don't need to log-in again when the wi-fi kicks in at other stations, which has been the case when a train pulls in at the other stations.

Although I agree that the Virgin Media wi-fi service at Canada Water and other tube stations are much easier to access.

Quote:

You seem to want a lot from a service that's entirely free.

Not at all. I just wanted it to work. As it doesn't, for me anyway, am no longer attempting to use it so have reverted to using 3G network when at Overground stations. I found it strange that this may be The Cloud's intention so was wondering what other user's experience may be.

Quote:

The Cloud's service is normally ok on a smartphone. Once logging in, you don't need to log-in again when the wi-fi kicks in at other stations, which has been the case when a train pulls in at the other stations.

I am using a smartphone. It is true that the system remembers you for a period of an hour. However, on returning to a station later on, the smartphone remembers the network and logs on to it. As The Cloud requires you to log on again via a web page (see Sky subscriber caveat above), then this means that the smartphone is routing traffic via a wireless network with no internet access. The upshot is that the internet connection is broken unless you happen to want to logon every time this happens. Not worth it, even for free, for me at any rate. Hope that clarifies.

As I said, YMMV.

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