Not long ago, air travel meant you had to switch off your phone and other electronic devices carried. Even for long-distance air travel, people had to put up with in-flight magazines and movies for entertainment. Fortunately, changes have been made – with more to come.
Today, people value connectivity more than ever. Passengers admiring aerial views prefer tweeting about their experiences and follow up with pictures – not content with merely complaining about the food to their neighbors. Airlines are responding to such demands and nearly 40% of the US fights now provide in-flight Wi-Fi, as do several international long-haul flights.
Onboard Wi-Fi technology is still in the nascent stages and significant problems abound. Fliers are not happy with the slow speeds and unreliable connection, especially when the cost for each device for a full flight is high. A FlightView survey of 600 US passengers inferred Wi-Fi offered in-flight satisfied only about 28% of business travelers. The key problem lies in the manner an airplane’s onboard Wi-Fi technology works – there are two main routes.
A US provider, GoGo, has a network system of 3G ground stations all across the US. Planes communicate with these stations when flying overhead. Although the system is simple, bandwidth can be as low as 3Mbps for the entire flight, making it inadequate per customer for streaming videos.
The company is now moving over to ATG-4 technology, with planes requiring dual modems and directional antennas. That boosts the total bandwidth to about 9.8Mbps – still not a significant increase. Planes flying over the seas cannot link to ground stations, which further worsens the connectivity.
As an alternative approach, some airlines allow planes to connect via a satellite. Earlier, they used legacy L-band technology, which was slow and rather expensive. Now using the higher-frequency Ku-band satellites is more common as they work at 12-18GHz. Not only does this offer good performance, it is economical as well. For example, the FlyNet system from Lufthansa claims its download speed to the aircraft reaches 50Mbps, even at the middle of the ocean.
Passengers can optionally connect in two ways. For example, OnAir, a telecom company, allows connections via GSM and Wi-Fi. If you are using a mobile phone, turn on your GSM mobile phone network and use it just as you would on international roaming. Your regular phone bill reflects the costs.
Wi-Fi connection within the aircraft depends on the airline’s own rules. You pay for bandwidth, time of use or distance traveled. Most service providers offset operational expenses and cost of technology (bandwidth) against the number of passengers opting for the service. That decides the rate the airline charges its passengers for the service.
Airlines are discovering the future for on-board connectivity lies in moving towards the Ka-band, which works at 26.5-40GHz via satellites – potentially increasing the capacity nearly 100 times that offered by the present Ku-band. According to ViaSat, a satellite company, this can mean offering each passenger a speed of about 12Mbps, while lessening the cost about five times – a significant progress for frequent, long-distance fliers.
