12 ms·
How Inflight Wifi Works
- mindslight 11y agoWhat's with the insistence on demand for streaming music or video on a plane? Do these people also forgo packing a suitcase and just rebuy everything as needed?
- pavel_lishin 11y agoAre you saying that they should pre-download movies and music to listen to on the plane? I use Google Play for music because it's pretty okay at letting me cache local music on my phone, but I have no idea how well Rdio, Spotify, or Pandora do that. I don't think there's a way to do it on your computer at all, so if you only have a work phone that you don't keep music on, streaming music might be your only option if you don't want to listen to one of the 13 channels provided via the crappy in-seat audio jack.
- kingosticks 11y agoThe Spotify android app supports offline playback. I've not used the desktop client in long time buy it probably still does too. I've never been on a plane that offered wifi but I've never flown internally in the US. I quite enjoy being properly disconnected for the duration of my annual London to San Francisco flight but maybe if I did it more regularly I wouldn't.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoWhat do you do while you're disconnected? (Other than sleep, I assume that the London->San Francisco flight is probably over eight hours.
- ghaff 11y agoCloser to 12 hours. Read, watch videos that I've downloaded (unless there are on-demand movies), listen to music/podcasts, play games on my tablet, snooze. Maybe it's just a function of traveling a lot but I've pretty much got a system down for my in-flight entertainment. I don't really care that much about in-flight Wi-Fi. Sometimes I really need to work on something but generally I find it's hard to use a laptop on a plane unless I'm flying business.
- scholia 11y agoA 10-12 hour flight (or two) is a great chance to do something that wouldn't fit easily into a normal day. You could read Moby-Dick while listening to the Messiah, or something. Bach Cantantas are good, if you like that sort of thing, because there's a couple of hundred of them. I tend to pack a readable novel (Gaiman, Stephenson, Pratchett or whatever), and it's amazing how fast the time goes. Start reading when you leave for the airport, read it while in queues etc. I read the Harry Potter series that way. Those of us who still have laptops with proper email clients can also use long flights to dispose of not-so-urgent emails, the only problem being that a lot of people will reply ;-)
- ghaff 11y ago(Sadly) longish flights are one of the few times I spend a lot of time reading books these days. Though this ends up meaning that I have lots of dead-tree books laying around home unread because I tend to just take a Kindle traveling. I like your idea about long-form music too. I have lots of classical playlists but I mostly use them as background.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 11y ago>Are you saying that they should pre-download movies and music to listen to on the plane? Um, yes? It doesn't really seem like a huge deal. On the other hand, I have a fairly large music library on my phone and carry a tablet for movies and other things.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoNetflix and Hulu don't support offline caching as far as I'm aware. And I can't run cat5 from my house to a flight. And buying a season of something to download from, e.g., Amazon seems silly when Netflix and Hulu offer it as part of their regular service - now that's like forgoing to pack a suitcase and just buying things on the go again.
- aroch 11y agoAmazon Prime video does though
- ghaff 11y agoAmazon does support offline caching--at least on their own tablets. And there's almost always a season of something I want to watch that isn't available streaming. I've also been known to rip DVDs and import them. The bottom line is that I can find plenty of things to watch that don't require double-buying.
- rconti 11y agoIt's not a huge deal. But when I'm packing at the last minute, the last thing I have time to do is sort through my music library to load more stuff onto my phone. Frankly, I kind of stopped maintaining my MP3 collection the better part of a decade ago. I have lots of stored music, sure, but it's non-trivial to maintain a music library on top of everything else in life. I use Spotify because it's convenient. But yes, they have offline mode if I remember to pre-download everything.
- ape4 11y agoWhen you buy your ticket (online of course) you could also select a movie to download. It could be available on the plane's LAN for you.
- untog 11y agoThere are already systems that provide that - stream over the inflight Wifi from a movie box somewhere on the plane. Provided I have a power outlet I prefer it to the usual system because my laptop screen is so much better than the in-seat TV.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago> Do these people also forgo packing a suitcase and just rebuy everything as needed? I've heard that it's actually a pretty viable travel strategy in some areas of the world.
- rhino369 11y agoI know people who do that when they come visit America from the EU. High end brands are a lot cheaper here.
- scholia 11y agoThey don't even have to be high-end brands. Don't think I've ever bought Levi's shirts or jeans in the UK....
- nly 11y agoWait for sales. The Levi jeans I wear are ~£80 a pair, but often come around at £40. Incidentally I believe Levi jeans in the US are made in Mexico, whereas the ones on the market in the UK are all made in Bangladesh. Some denimheads are convinced the Mexican ones are of poorer workmanship. Different washes (colours) are also priced differently and the cotton may vary between them even if they have the same cut (number). Like anything these days you need to do your research. I've never paid higher than £60 for a pair of jeans and only ever own 2 to 4 pairs at a time. They last a long while. On a related note. I just got back from a month in the States and was surprised at how comparable prices were to the UK these days. Eating out, clothing, groceries, electronics. All fairly expensive. I'm not sure where rhino369 is shopping.
- saryant 11y agoWow. 80 GBP is almost triple the normal price at the Macy's down the street from me in the US.
- scholia 11y agoAs I've never bought them in the UK, I don't watch UK prices. I've bought most of mine from JC Penney in the Boulevard mall in Las Vegas, and they often have deals, or will do deals (20% off). I remember getting five black 501 shirts for under $150, though that was a few years ago now ;-) I usually stock up because (a) you can't rely on companies to keep the style identical -- not even Levi's; and (b) the price is only going to go up. They do last, so I still have several shirts I've never worn.
- JoshGlazebrook 11y agoDoes anyone have details on the ground based cell networks used for some planes? Are they partnering with a provider like Verizon Wireless to use their existing service, which I don't believe is the case unless they are aiming their antennas into the air on certain towers for them. Or do they just lease space for their own antennas on towers and aim them upwards? and then pay for bandwidth, etc?
- slapshot 11y agoGoGo is the big ground-based provider. GoGo uses a network of cell towers that point up rather than down. An antenna under the plane connects to towers much like civilian cellphones. [1] By contrast, Row 44 (used by Southwest and some international carriers) is a satellite-based system. An antenna on top of the plane connects to a geostationary satellite. [2] Other services do one or both of the above. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row_44 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnAir_(telecommunications) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnAir_(telecommunications)
- toomuchtodo 11y agoLast I heard, GoGo (previously Aircell) used an MPLS network to shuttle traffic between a few hundred AT&T cell sites they were using for their equipment, but that was years ago.
- degenerate 11y agoJet Blue just rolled out free wifi to most of their US-based flights... and while it was pretty slow, I could still RDP into my work computer to answer emails and read HN. That was pretty sweet. You can pay $10 to get "gaming" speeds but I didn't test it out. I'd imagine most pings being >200ms. Has anyone tried it out?
- mbesto 11y agoI use airline wifi quite a bit. This has been my experience: Gogo (Delta/American/Virgin) - Meh (anywhere between 50-1000 KB/s) United - Mostly crap (anywhere between 5-200 KB/s) Jet Blue - Free tier was pretty solid (anywhere between 500-1500 KB/s)
- wrenky 11y agoI work for ViaSat (the satellite provider for FlyFi)! You'll never have latency fast enough for "gaming" speeds, as your signal has to travel halfway to the moon and back meaning a physical limit of at least 500ms. Not good enough for gaming, but streaming/torrents/large downloads work great.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- objclxt 11y agoMost US domestic airlines don't use satellite links, since they're always above ground. They tend to use ground based microwave technology instead, which offers better latency. Source: I used to do some consultancy for a provider of in-flight entertainment / wifi systems.
- devy 11y agoThis paragraph is absurd. Not sure if the author was excessively exaggerating or this is true. Can someone who's a domain expert or is familiar with the device to clarify why in-flight WAPs are 10x more expensive but 10x more fragile? Cosmic rays? Called Wireless Access Points (or WAPs), these black boxes function similarly to Wi-Fi routers that would be found in a home, but because they’re on an airplane, they cost 10 times more and break 10 times more easily. Each WAP is connected by a QuadRax cable, which is essentially formed of wires within wires within wires.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoSounds like it's more of a joke, but I bet it feels like they break down more often - it's probably not trivial to just powercycle it mid-flight like you would your router at home.
- cryptoz 11y agoI have used in-flight WiFi on about 10 to 15 flights, and I would say that about half those times it either breaks midway through the flight or it doesn't work at all. From my anecdotal experience the failure rate is more like 100x higher than home WiFi. Not that I'm complaining, it's magical to even get WiFi for a few seconds in an airplane. I try to hold the same attitude as Louis CK on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0
- hueving 11y agoIt's not really the WiFi component that is unreliable though. It's the connection to the ground. Every time the Internet connection breaks down, the WiFi connection itself is fine.
- chillwaves 11y agoBut how do we explain why WiFi never works on buses?
- 11y ago
- btrask 11y agoWhile on a flight recently, I realized... Why doesn't Google sponsor free in-flight WiFi? It would be much easier than Google Fiber or Project Loon, and it would let them deliver more ads to a fairly wealthy group of people.
- chiph 11y agoThey did it at least once over the Christmas holidays two years ago. Probably didn't pay off for them in terms of ad revenue by flying web browsers.
- soylentcola 11y agoSure, but it's at least good PR. Like some other companies, they do a lot of "nice" things that may not gain them anything immediately but it's good for branding and it's still a "by Google" tag on something people want. It reminds me more of companies that underwrite NPR programs or whatever. They aren't getting paid directly but lots of potential customers hear their name and that they sponsored something you want.
- bitwize 11y agoBecause the (American) airlines will say no. Or, they will accept the offer and then charge $12 per seat anyway. I think they get perverse joy out of nickel and diming people to death. When not-uncomfortable seats are a premium feature, there's nothing they won't charge for.
- greggyb 11y agoAmerican travelers tend to purchase tickets based solely on price. If your consumers are very price conscious, you move as much as you can out of the base price. Don't blame airlines in the US, blame airline customers. Personally, I like the nickel-and-dime scheme, as you call it. I rarely take cross country flights. My typical travel is 3-4 hours of flying at the most. I absolutely prefer a cheaper base ticket price, because I don't care if they give me crappy food for "free" in that time frame. At 6'2", I fit comfortably even in Spirit's closely-spaced seating. I travel very light and typically have a single bag. For me, a lower base fare with extra charges for the rest is something I prefer. I am very happy that the US air-traveling market agrees with me and has pushed the industry in this direction.
- beachstartup 11y agodoes anyone know a highly reliable mobile satellite internet solution? price is less-ish of an object but i've been looking for something to take with me on extended camping trips and remote locations to do work or for emergencies (also thinking of buying property somewhere without good wired internet). haven't found much so far except for extremely expensive (5-figure) expedition type rigs.
- Scottopherson 11y agoI'm interested in this too. I could take a lot more camping trips if I could video chat w/ coworkers from remote locations.
- idlewords 11y agoI'm kind of glad this is a limiting factor on techies in the wilderness.
- brandon272 11y agoI have searched for this before too as I'm not comfortable vacationing in places where I'm completely disconnected for a week at a time. Though the only thing I've been able to find are BGAN terminals. The equipment rental + data is extremely expensive.
- ahefner 11y agoShould improve over the next few years. There are several large new Ka-band systems either currently coming online (e.g. Inmarsat GX) or under development, and market pressure to build smaller, cheaper satellite terminals.
- farva 11y agoIt's possible (at least with the HN7000 ku-band system) to put a Hughesnet dish on a tripod and point it yourself (with the proper tools and knowledge). You'd need to get it from a dealer that allows self-installs (Hughesnet won't sell you equipment without a professional installation), such as Montana Satellite.
- ekimekim 11y agoI mainly do trans-pacific flights. In such long (>12h) flights I can't use wifi even if its on offer, as it chews through precious battery time too fast. I would kill for plane seats with power plugs, or even just USB power.
- rconti 11y agoI typically find I can get ~6 hours on most modern laptops, which means far more hours than I have the patience to stare at a computer screen for.
- thescriptkiddie 11y agoLast time I flew internationally, I brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos. I only ended up getting 4 of the advertised 9 hours run time running VLC with the brightness turned all the way down. Luckily, there were power outlets hidden under the seats. I don't understand why power outlets aren't the number 1 selling point for airlines that have them.
- scholia 11y agoIn the days when I traveled a lot, I used IBM ThinkPad X laptops with expanded (9-cell) interchangeable batteries. You just take a spare charged battery and swap them over. I once did London -> Chicago -> Seattle and still had about an hour of battery life for the bus from seatac. That wasn't continuous use, but as much use as I needed.
- PhantomGremlin 11y agoI brought a 2015 macbook pro retina with a hard drive full of videos Not clear which exact model you have. Some have a discrete AMD GPU which would take more power. Also it's not clear what format your videos were in. If it's something like DVD rips, then it could have been MPEG-2. I don't think Intel GPUs have any hardware support for playing that back. Also VLC probably doesn't take advantage of any CPU support for playing back video. You should do a little more research. Your reported performance seems disappointing. You should be able to do much better. For example the current model 13" claims: Up to 12 hours iTunes movie playback Notice they don't mention VLC there. :) So you might have to transcode your video into a format that iTunes supports.
- colmvp 11y agoOf all the things I want on a plane, WiFi ranks a lot lower than having a consistent power outlet at my seat. There's nothing worse than having Wifi but a laptop that can only last a % of the flight.
- rbanffy 11y agoA business (or first) class seat beats any of those. ;-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jquery 11y agoEspecially in price.
- asavadatti 11y agoI'd rather have wifi part way than be stuck offline all the way. I can always get online on my phone if my laptop dies.
- untog 11y agoI'd love to see an airline get rid of seat back TVs entirely and just provide power outlets instead. There are already systems that let you stream movies for free over in-flight wi-fi - given that most of us have a smartphone (if not a bigger screened device) the experience would probably be better. Would suck for those without smartphones, though. Maybe they could lend out crappy Android tablets to that minority of customers.
- slapshot 11y agoSouthwest does that in large part: there are zero in-seat entertainment systems, but 80% of planes have WiFi that includes (free) streaming live TV, (pay) streaming movies, and (pay) Internet access. No outlets yet, but rumors are that the next generation of interiors might.
- 11y ago
- calebm 11y agoIf they don't offer free wifi, just use DNS tunneling ;)
- finnn 11y agoI got 10-15 second round trip time to the ground using DNS tunneling on Southwest's inflight WiFi
- 0xdragon 11y agoAnyone tried ICMP tunnelling? :)
- calebm 11y agoThey were blocking ICMP on United last time I checked (4 days ago). If I pinged a website, the ip would come back, but the pings would timeout.
- 0xdragon 11y agoAh, that's a pity. I might try it when I fly next. Wish there was a website that displayed the airline along with which different tunnelling methods worked. I'd pay for that :)
- guelo 11y agoIt used to feel like a sanctuary going on a plane and being forced offline, no social media, no emails, no ads, no constant poking of my dopamine receptors. One of the last refuges.
- Altaer 11y agoI thoroughly enjoy driving due to the fact that I know I can't do anything productive on my phone or computer. It's one of the few times I can relax myself and enjoy the experience...something that is dwindling on airplanes as the WIFI technology gets better and better.
- ikeboy 11y agoFormally used for military communications Probably should be formerly.
- dheera 11y ago"Prior to the integration of in-flight Wi-Fi, most airline passengers passed their time at 30,000 feet completely disconnected from the world below them — but these days, that’s a highly uncommon occurrence." Am I missing something here? 99% of the flights I take don't offer Wi-Fi, and in most cases not even power outlets. And those that do have Wi-Fi seem to be charging 30% of my monthly internet bill to provide it for a mere few hours. Like, no thanks.
- serf 11y agoYou're one of the lucky ones. Almost all my flights have power outlets, which means that some stranger is going to be rooting around my ankles trying to find the damn outlet for the first 20 minutes of the voyage.
- rco8786 11y agoDang, for every new convenience technology affords us there's someone to complain about it.
- idlewords 11y agoBecause it usually comes with an inconvenience of equal or greater value.
- rco8786 11y agoThat's simply not true.
- guiambros 11y agoIndeed. It remembers me of Louis CK - everything's amazing and nobody's happy [1] [1] https://youtu.be/uEY58fiSK8E?t=143 https://youtu.be/uEY58fiSK8E?t=143
- personjerry 11y agoIn my experience the outlets are always on the back of the seat in front of mine, that floor socket seems like a bad design in a space-cramped setting.
- nfriedly 11y agoFunny story: some in-flight WiFi services give you a different price based on your user-agent (high for phones, higher for tablets, highest for desktop browers). Fortunately no one can change that...
- ubernostrum 11y agoIf you fly a lot and are consistent in your choice of airline, typically you can buy an unlimited-use pass that renews monthly for a flat fee. If you don't fly often, I know you can prepay for a pass for your flight before leaving home on most services. Though for my use case (flying 75,000-85,000 miles/year on average) the monthly pass is absolutely cheaper.
- ryan-c 11y agoThey also charge less if you buy on the ground. Wouldn't be surprised if they charged more if you registered from airport WiFi. On an android phone, you can connect to WiFi then USB tether.
- copperx 11y ago> initial page elements will take up to a second to appear. This happens to me too on my home 50Mbps connection.