ElleD9

I was on amtrak last week and for the first time was able to get a reliable wifi signal for most of the journey. That made me curious if TGV trains in France provide WIFI access. I did a search of the forum and didn't see anything about this. Unfortunately, my French is not reliable enough to do a reasonable search on the sncf site.

Does anybody have any info?

Thanks

Andrew

My TGV train from Paris to Luxembourg City (in May) indeed offered WiFi - but not for free, so I passed on it. I brought up the login page but didn't go further than that. (It was barely a two hour trip and I don't think it was that cheap, so didn't seem worth it to me.)

Ackislander

Pay only except perhaps in 1st class. Eurostar 1st class lounge at St Pancras has good wifi, the main waiting area allegedly has free acess but the bandwidth is so crowded that it is unusable.

schnauzer

Was in first class TGV this month and no wifi.

MaineGG

Internet access through a portal called Box TGV is available on the TGV Est line.

Here's the link:

https://boxtgv.voyages-sncf.com/

YankyGal

Ditto what schnauzer said - no wifi in first class from Figueres to Paris (6+ hour trip). I was surprised, actually. Another American, some French girls and I promised one another we'd let the others know if we ever got connected (you could see connections available, but they didn't work) but none of us were successful.

ElleD9

Thank you all for your replies!

flanneruk

Tunnels, bridges and stations make wifi patchy on pretty well all conventional European trains that offer it, even disregarding the peculiar complexity of maintaining connection at the very high speeds of most TGV lines (by definition, a technical complication Amtrak doesn't have to bother its pretty little head dealing with).

With extremely short journey times, and smartphone penetration almost 100% among travellers who want perpetual access to email, consumer demand is likely to remain far too limited for most TOCs to contemplate the very high capital costs needed for dedicated trackside equipment to provide seamless reception - unless there's a huge technical breakthrough.

The almost-universal solution in most of Europe is to invest in a 3G- or 4G-dependent dongle. But even this, on the lines I use most often, is very prone to hit coverage gaps in the countryside.

Pewit

Travelling on TGV in 1st class from Paris to Marseille and no WiFi. The Chinese and Japanese high speed trains both have WiFi so it is technically possible.

kerouac

The TGV-Est was designed with wifi incorporated. Free in 1st class only.