wireless internet on airplanes

[Zolty]

I am currently on a flight from Philly to ATL, surfing the web on my netbook, the future is now.

1.5mb/s down 384 up. Connection seems good I can watch hulu with no problems and it's free on my airtran flight.

 

[h8red]

that is very cool

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Delta wanted like $10 for it

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's pretty neat, wonder how that works, considering the plane is moving pretty fast. Guess it just has a main transceiver and connects to satellites or towers as it passes them.

 

[Zolty]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's pretty neat, wonder how that works, considering the plane is moving pretty fast. Guess it just has a main transceiver and connects to satellites or towers as it passes them.

I am going to go with magic, and good magic because it hasn't dropped once the duration of the flight.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

probably works the same way they get live tv.

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's pretty neat, wonder how that works, considering the plane is moving pretty fast. Guess it just has a main transceiver and connects to satellites or towers as it passes them.

That sounds about right. I imagine the signal would be strong and consistent for most all of the flight seeing as most of the flight takes place above cloud cover, eliminating interference from weather.

 

[Aharami]

thats pretty cool

 

[skim milk]

is this on all airtran flights?
definitely flying airtran next time

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's pretty neat, wonder how that works, considering the plane is moving pretty fast. Guess it just has a main transceiver and connects to satellites or towers as it passes them.

It's a small patch antenna in the center of the cabin connected to a wireless access point. From there you hop on satellite. Pretty straight forward actually.

I'd be interested in what the latency is.

 

[Zolty]

yeah it seems to be all airtran flights at least on 737s


average latency to google is 120 ms

just hopped on my connection from atl to phx

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
Delta wanted like $10 for it

worth it on a long flight. i usually put a couple movies on my laptop for a flight, but if i didnt, or had a long ride, id pay the 10 bucks if you could really get hulu or what not to load good enough

 

[Auggie]

Great, I can't wait to do some Ulduar raid next time I need to fly up to NY...

 

[luv2liv]

where do u get the juice?
i have never seen an outlet on a plane.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: luv2liv
where do u get the juice?
i have never seen an outlet on a plane.

There are these cool little devices called batteries...

 

[rh71]

can you see if they let you hit porn sites?

 

[sdifox]

so they allow wifi but no cell phone... why on earth isn't it a hard line?

 

[magreen]

Can you break filesharing laws on an internat'l flight? What about domestic?

 

[UnatcoAgent]

If they can do this, why on earth would they not have some kind of data collection recording the flight systems on the plane and sending it over the webbernet, instead of the physical black boxes??

 

[LordSnailz]

interesting ... anyone have more information on how it all works? also will wimax change anything?

 

[LS21]

Originally posted by: Sabot
If they can do this, why on earth would they not have some kind of data collection recording the flight systems on the plane and sending it over the webbernet, instead of the physical black boxes??

1. blackbox have internal power (failsafe)
2. do they have wifi on transoceanic flights?
3. innovation is not in a carriers dictionary

 

[KK]

you mentioned airtran, when I flew on them last week they wanted something like 12 or 13 dollars for it. you also mentioned having two legs, one between atl and philly, and one out west. does the wifi on the first leg carry over to the second.

Also set your cell phone to ring when you are 30k feet up and answer it like you are talking to someone. see if you get any funny looks.

 

[Zolty]

Originally posted by: sdifox
so they allow wifi but no cell phone... why on earth isn't it a hard line?

Your cell phone doesn't work up there

Originally posted by: KK
you mentioned airtran, when I flew on them last week they wanted something like 12 or 13 dollars for it. you also mentioned having two legs, one between atl and philly, and one out west. does the wifi on the first leg carry over to the second.

Also set your cell phone to ring when you are 30k feet up and answer it like you are talking to someone. see if you get any funny looks.

It was free on both flights. I was really surprised. I flew Philly to atlanta then atlanta to phoenix.

Not really sure what you mean by carry over, but both flights had free wifi, and it was awesome until my battery went.
My only complaint was the creepy drunk guy who kept looking at me chat with a friend, until I wrote "Some drunk creepy guy keeps reading what I write and what you are saying, I don't think he understands common courtesy". After that he divided his attention between, his 6-10 year old son, his wife ahead of him, and the group of really annoying (although cute) girls across the isle.

Oh and on a non wifi-note, someone was eating a tuna sandwich on the plane; which lead me to believe that there are really inconsiderate fucks out there.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Zolty

Originally posted by: sdifox
so they allow wifi but no cell phone... why on earth isn't it a hard line?

Your cell phone doesn't work up there

Originally posted by: KK
you mentioned airtran, when I flew on them last week they wanted something like 12 or 13 dollars for it. you also mentioned having two legs, one between atl and philly, and one out west. does the wifi on the first leg carry over to the second.

Also set your cell phone to ring when you are 30k feet up and answer it like you are talking to someone. see if you get any funny looks.

It was free on both flights. I was really surprised. I flew Philly to atlanta then atlanta to phoenix.

Not really sure what you mean by carry over, but both flights had free wifi, and it was awesome until my battery went.
My only complaint was the creepy drunk guy who kept looking at me chat with a friend, until I wrote "Some drunk creepy guy keeps reading what I write and what you are saying, I don't think he understands common courtesy". After that he divided his attention between, his 6-10 year old son, his wife ahead of him, and the group of really annoying (although cute) girls across the isle.

Oh and on a non wifi-note, someone was eating a tuna sandwich on the plane; which lead me to believe that there are really inconsiderate fucks out there.

lol what if the airline served the tuna sammiches? would they be inconsiderate fucks too? some people are way too sensitive about their surroundings, may be time to remember how to live without bitching about everything.

 

[drquest]

I had free wifi on my flight to Vegas last week. Worked great and made the time go quicker.

The cool part was the default webpage had a map that showed where your plane was. Even cooler was a timeline showing you ETA, how high you were flying and how fast....