The commute for ferry passengers on the Chimacum and at the Bremerton terminal will become a lot more entertaining, productive or simply distracting later this year, depending on how they use the internet.
Washington State Ferries is taking a first step toward offering Wi-Fi at its terminals and aboard its vessels with this limited, one-vessel, one-terminal pilot project on the Seattle-Bremerton route, according to a report from the state agency.
State lawmakers last year directed WSF to test the technology and asked the agency to evaluate the viability, cost, operational implications and funding models for a modern public Wi-Fi system.
The pilot program, which will run May through August, will collect data about how many people use the Wi-Fi, how much bandwidth is used and how reliable it is to help decide if Wi-Fi on ferries is realistic, and whether it should be free. It's unclear if users will be charged during the pilot program.
The state currently does not provide public internet service on ferries. It did a decade ago, but only 2% of riders logged on to the service provided through Wi-Fi company Boingo.
The Legislature will ultimately decide whether the pilot program is workable and should be fully funded.
The December report estimated that a single-terminal, single-vessel pilot could cost between $100,000 and $150,000, including both the passenger waiting areas and vehicle lanes at the Bremerton terminal, as well as aboard the Chimacum, a medium-sized boat in the state fleet that sails between Bremerton and Seattle.
This cost estimate covers equipment, installation and vendor support. Deployment across the entire system would likely require millions of dollars, according to the report, with annual operational costs in the seven-figure range.
The state is looking for a vendor to install and run the pilot program. WSF will analyze the findings in late summer and make recommendations to the Legislature in September.
When state ferries did have Wi-Fi, which cost users $7.95 a day or $21.95 a month when it started in 2008, riders found it inconsistent.
Since the Boingo service ended in 2016, passengers have been left to their own devices and cellular networks. But cell signals have trouble breaking through the shaded windows on many ferries, meant to protect the furniture from weathering too quickly under the sun's rays, leaving many people bored and forced to read, look out the window or talk to strangers.
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