I’m writing this blog post on the National Express (previously GNER) train from Leuchars to London Kings Cross – a 6 hour cross-country route that’s taking us home after a short break in St Andrews. Two seats down I see a someone in the nervous last minutes of an eBay auction and another tending to their Facebook profile. My last coffee run was more akin to perusing the aisles of PC World’s laptop department, with dozens more passengers connected (metaphorically) to their screens.

The perpetual on-board rise of the machines is nothing new. We’ve been using laptops to watch movies, play games and (dare I say) work on trains for years. The significant thing about this particular train is that wi-fi is now freely available to all passengers. The original GNER service has been commercially available  since 2004, on a pricing models similar to most service providers. Business users could justify the cost, whilst leisure use could only be described as a luxury.

By offering wi-fi for free, National Express has responded positively to the evolution of the ways in which we now use and value connectivity. For a growing majority, wi-fi is now considered a commodity service. More people expect some form of connectivity to be available either for free, or extremely affordable; otherwise they will look elsewhere.

The sales of 3G cards is on the rise, with many claiming to offer broadband speeds (although I expect the band to not-be-so-broad whilst travelling at 130MPH though open countryside). And of course, the latest breeds of phone are smarter than ever, and provide access to the most essential connected services. Blackberry and iPhone are by no means restricted to business use either.

The main cost to National Express of running a free service is that the sudden influx in usage, catalysed by the free wi-fi offering, means that infrastructure upgrades are now essential. With many more people now sharing the same connection, throughput (download and upload speed) has taken a hit. No doubt this will be fixed with time.

I expect that in the not too distant future, many more planes, trains and automobiles (and boats, etc) will follow suit and bundle free wi-fi into the ticket price. This step towards ubiquitous in-motion connectivity also creates new opportunities for the Location Based Advertising market, such as the potential to tell service not just where you are, but where you’re going next…