On a NextGen Acela trip from DC to Baltimore in late September, 10 tests with that speed-benchmarking tool provided even faster averages: 112.3Mbps downloads and 77Mbps uploads. But NextGen Acela’s connectivity relies on the same architecture as Amtrak’s older trains: cellular bandwidth from the national wireless carriers, aggregated by receivers on each train. The network gear on NextGen Acela includes “multiple routers per train” with a peak throughput of 10Gbps available for the train’s peak capacity of 386 passengers. (Credit: Amtrak)All of Amtrak’s NEC trains include power outlets, but NextGen Acela positions them between each pair of seats and adds two USB-A ports there. Amtrak began working on this concept more than a decade ago, but NextGen Acela connectivity doesn’t rely on the wayside network that has been built out so far.