AC Transit, the East Bay transit authority, is now offering wifi on some of their buses, 90 buses in total. Targeting commuters with the service, the transit authority hopes the networking capabilities will lure drivers out of their cars and onto the buses.

Good idea but count me a little skeptical. First and foremost, it’s based on AT&T’s 3G cellular technology, which is then coupled to a wifi access point installed in the bus. With a 400k speed limit throttling performance, users could be left unfulfilled, but more importantly what happens if 3, 4, or 15 riders get on the network at the same time? In reading the coverage of the testing trial I didn’t get any data on whether or not they tested the network for multiple users.

The cost for providing this service is surprisingly low, at $60 per month per bus the annualized cost is $65,000 and that’s not bad. What that means is that there is less pressure to show immediate payback in terms of consumption.