Wifi/sockets on TGV/TER Trains
 

Hi everyone!

I'll be traveling around France in May for a vacation but will still need to work. The best time for me to do this at home is during train journeys, using the rather expensive (but decently fast if one gets it to work) eastcoast wifi. Do french trains come equipped with wifi? I will be travelling on the TGV for the south of france, and the TER. If not, are there sockets where I am able to plug my laptop in?

Many thanks in advance!

IIRC, the TGV does have wifi. I can't say about TER or sockets.

One thing the French and Italians seem to have mastered is the art of speaking very quietly into their mobile phones. I have never been aware of what the people around me are talking about, just a very low murmur.

My recent experience has uncovered no sockets in either standard or first on the trains I took.

Railway operators are generally adding sockets in both classes to refurbed long distance stock (they're being added to standard in the next Eurostar upgrade and far more importantly to the Cotswold trains currently being rebuilt) and now almost always include them as standard in newly added stock.

So it'll be decades before there's a standard answer to your question (rebuilding a train's bloody expensive, and rolling stock has a life expectancy as least as long as 747s and 737s.) You need to contact the operator about the rolling stock on your specific journey.

My policy is always to recharge before any train journey over 2 hrs, pay more attention in laptop selection to battery life than anything else and carry a spare power source, or second laptop (if you're writing a report, you don't need the latest superfast machine), if I can't determine whether there will be accessible power.

I always take a second (charged) battery. I doubt if TER will have wifi for years but true TGV will

I have always found 220vac sockets on seats in TGV first class. I have never seen them in second class.

There is a plan for some trains to have WiFi available but I have heard nothing scheduled implementation.

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for the replies, and sincere apologies for not getting back sooner. I travelled on the TGV and TER trains for my trip; the TGV has sockets for first class, but it is a pain getting the adapter into the socket. The TER has sockets every few seats. There is no wifi for either train type.