Broadband Reports has recently informed that cable provider Comcast was testing a free Wi-Fi service for its cable customers at approximately one hundred New Jersey Transit commuter rail stations and parking lots.

The trial was kicked off on Friday, after the largest cable provider in the United States evaluated the free Wi-Fi services from its rival Cablevision, prompted by the fact that cable operators are currently facing pressure to offer consumers wireless services.

Comcast and Cablevision have been working together on the free services for a while now, their collaboration being said to enable each of the two companies to expand their Wi-Fi services user-base by allowing the customers of both companies to have access to the other's networks if their own coverage cannot be accessed.

A Comcast spokesperson stated for the Associated Press that the trial was still in its early days, though adding that if all was to go as planned, the Wi-Fi service would be offered all throughout the nation.

This service has no connection with Comcast’s joint venture with Clearwire, which is aimed at providing customers with broadband access through WiMax networks.

On a related topic, it has been shown that consumers prefer using Wi-Fi to download mobile content onto their phones rather than doing so via their provider’s networks, a new study has revealed. The latter, which was commissioned by Wi-Fi software vendor Devicescape, found that 81 percent of the participants in a survey preferred Wi-Fi over 3G for surfing the mobile web and downloading content.