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Wireless LAN Onboard Passenger Aircraft
KjetilK writes "Scandinavian Airlines System announced today that they will start testing a wireless LAN based on IEEE 802.11b, onboard their aircrafts this year." It sounds like they have might have some restrictions in web sites available and such, but this is a darn cool idea. Of course, SAS isn't doing any domestic US flights but... *sigh*
Most aircraft (Including all Transport catagory craft) have a "Minnimum equipment list" that tells them what exactly can be inoprative for each type of operation. If 1 seat's interenet connection was busted it would not stop them from flying. They would just mark it as non fuctional till the next time the tech staff could look at it.
Similarly it is often the case that 1 seat on the airplane may not be usable due to a busted seatbelt or something, not a huge deal they just leave it empty.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I fly a DA-20 Katana out of BED, Hanscome Field, Bedford Ma. Got my PPL 24 Dec 2000. (Baby Pilot)
I expect to move to a PA-28 Warrior and do my IFR stuff in the next few months.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Yeah, but then he couldn't have converted each period to a goatsex link.
I love the Singapore airport. It's definitely one of the coolest around.
I know it's FAA regulation - but what is a laptop or a discman really going to do?
Exactly what the root post of this thread said they will do - louse up the navigation equipment.
While you're in the air, 30k feet above anything that might hit you, this isn't an issue. But when the plane is landing, it's following interference fringes of a couple of radio beacons by the runway. You do *NOT* want anything that even *might* be transmitting RF to be active during takeoff or landing. Airports have enough problems with noise from the local radio stations.
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So no, before we see this in production use RF interference wont be a problem.
-henrik
a 747 of geeks playing quake and unreal tournament... wirelessly =)
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
SAS is also working to find a solution so that passengers can gain access to their own company's e-mail system behind a firewall.
:-)
In related news, SAS is looking to hire some 133t h4x0rs who can penetrate company firewalls
This sounds more like establishing L2TP or PPTP or IPSec tunnels to corporate firewalls, allowing email to be picked up after authentication. Why SAS would be getting involved in that level of connection is a little beyond me, but they might make it a pay service for those who regularly use their lounges.
I wonder what kind of link goes from the small router on the plane to the internet? Satellite most likely, although there are some terrestrial aircomm systems throughout Europe that could provide slow but cheap access. And would they really be filtering websites, or could I pass my own SSH/IPSec/SNMP/BGP traffic while at 35000 feet?
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I'd like to see this happen at coffee shops as well. A handful of coffee shops I know of have plenty of AC ports avaiable to plug into, but only 1 or 2 I know of have an ethernet port nearby to plug into. To narrow it down further, there's only 1 coffee shop that'll let you plug in(and pay the hourly fee) to surf the web and sip coffee on.
I've been to one coffee shop where an unofficial Quake deathmatch took place, and we had cords all over the place. This could be greatly simplified with wireless, where you wouldn't run into restrictions of how far your network cables go nor how many ports you have in your battery-operated hub. You could have all the customers in the shop just join in on the fraggin'.
Its quite interesting that the big moves in the Wireless market all seem to come from Scandinavia. For a small bunch of people they really really really like keeping in touch.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Hey, don't knock it 'till you've tried it man. Once you get over the "Oh, wow" reaction it's seems as normal as reading the newspaper while you do your thing.
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There are many people who take many flights longer than 3 hours. Have you ever traveled outside the United States? Do you have any idea how many flights fly out of this country every day and how many people fly on those flights?
Further, I don't know where you came up with the 3 hour limit. YOU might want to catch a nap while you're on the plane but that doesn't mean that's what everyone else wants to do. I can't sleep on short flights so for me, personally, any flying time is a complete waste. I usually synch up my laptop before emplaning and spend my time replying to my email. Having network connectivity would be great for me!
And how the hell did you conclude that these modifications would make the plane tickets any more expensive? If an airline has to raise prices to offer this service, consumers who don't care about the service won't take that airline any more!
Anyway, this service will probably not be offered in Cattle^H^H^H^H^Hoach Class to begin with, anyway.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Doesn't FAA require that any device that transmits a signal, such as a cell phone, be turned off during the entire flight? Wouldn't this restriction also apply to wireless ethernet?
No, the restrictions on cellphones is from the FCC. A cellphone in the air, where it has direct line-of-sight to about 30 cellphone towers will play havoc with the cells because it will block out a channel band in each of those cells.
I doubt the FAA cares about the intentions of the device - only whether or not it actually does transmit a signal. I guess the assumption is that the particular wireless protocol used is known to not cause interference with the airplanes navigation systems.
The FAA regulations apply only to US registered carriers and flights operating in and out of the United States. However, the FAA regulations are considered the de facto standard in formulating regulations by other aviation authorities.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Yes, not only are they common, they're actively solicited. I can't tell you how many times after filing or opening my flight plan, Flight Service has come back in a cheerful voice and said "We'd appreciate any pilot reports you could provide while in flight."
For non-pilots, a pilot report (or PIREP for short), is a weather report filed while in flight.
According to 14 CFR 91.21:
No person may operate, nor may the operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the operation of, any portable electronic device on any of the following U.S.-registered civil aircraft... except for... any other portable electronic device that the operator of the aircraft has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system on the aircraft on which it is to be used.
So it only applies to U.S.-registered airplanes (although I bet the JARs have a similar section), and if the operator (air carrier) determines that there is no problem, that is allowed.
The MEL only applies to components of the aircraft that would otherwise render the aircraft unairworthy if they were to fail. A busted entertainment system would not render the aircraft unairworthy, so therefore it would not be included in the MEL.
Not to mention *weight*. You know how much it would weigh to wire each seat with cat5, and include the necessary jacks, hubs/switches, etc? It would weigh way too much to be feasable, unless it could somehow be integrated with the current wiring in place (which I seriously doubt). The weight that would be spent on cabling would be better spent hauling passengers or cargo... where the airline actually makes money.
Funny (slightly off-topic) story : I'm flying back from Germany a couple of months back. I'm coming out of the restrooms at the very back of the plane (big 747-400) and I pass this guy walking around with his cell-phone, jamming it to his ear and then checking the display. Of course my first thought is "moron, don't use a cell-phone in flight!"...then about 30 seconds later it hits me. We're about mid-way in a flight from Frankfurt to Toronto....there isn't a damned cell tower for hundreds of miles in any direction because we're over the mid-Atlantic. :) I didn't bother to tell him he had no hope of completing his call....I was too busy laughing. luser!
Let's just hope they give the flight controlls an IP.
;)
They don't need an IP. The smart money says the only two words you'll need to know are "public" and "private".
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I find it hard to believe that a passive receiver can cause more problems than an active 802.11b transmitter.
You probably aren't an RF engineer (neither am I), but I figured I'd clean this up. In order to receive a signal, you must transmit it. To be precise, if you've got a radio station transmitting at 107.9MHz, your radio must generate a 107.9MHz signal inside it, align that with the phase of the incoming signal, and subtract one from the other. It's left with the raw modulation, which is what you want to end up with.
Therefore, leaky electronics can and will spew RF even (especially!) if it's only a receiver.
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"My mother takes two 14+ hour flights (NYC to Pakistan, and back) every two months or so. (Retired).
My brother takes 2-3 hour flights every Monday and every Friday. (Consultant)."
Ok, so the 14 hour flights aren't business flights. No Internet connection is required, though it might be fun to have one.
The 2 - 3 hour flights fall into my 2 - 3 hour timeline; does he *need* an internet connection?
I'm not saying the 'net' wouldn't be interesting to have access to in any place, just the same as it would be interesting to have the net accessable in a washroom. Interesting like, "Oh wow, what kind of person has to get their email while they're in the washroom".
My point is only that we should re-evaluate how much time & money we want public transportation to invest in keeping us working round-the-clock.
If I were on a plane with a laptop right now, I'd be playing a game, or reading some saved information. The fact that I *could* one day connect to the net and get new information is boring when i consider how much time I'm actually spending on most flights.
It seems like the only practical reason to invest time and money in networking people in-flight, is to help their business interests; and what business can stand to spend so much for a flight and accomodations, but can't afford that 3 hours of luxury net-free time we would all enjoy if we weren't so hyped about the 'possibility' of connecting in the air.
Ace
You really think you could produce something as good as this or the other pictures you can see here with a webcam? The information that is hard to come from is pressure, tempature, dewpoint. That kind of stuff. Hint they take these pictures from space they can see the whole world. And a weather station already gets pretty good reports from the pilots. Trust me I did this for 4 years they don't need a crappy little webcam picture
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Just out of my own experience, I just wanted to say that the standard itself rocks. I bought a base station and card from Dell with my new notebook and you can roam with these things everywhere. And since my cable modem only supports speeds up to around 3 Mbps, the 11Mbps standard more than covers it.
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There have been several crashes linked to cell phone usage in-flight
No, there havent.
I believe there was a Dateline NBC story a few months ago about just this (if not Dateline, it was another comperable show). Of all the studies conducted on this, not a single one has concluded that cel phone signals (or usage of laptops for that matter) interfere with anything on an aircraft. If you know of any, please direct us there, or if you can back up your claim, give us an NTSB official report of a crash caused by cel phone usage.
The real reason is that the airlines have struck a deal with cel phone service providers. When you use a cel phone on the ground, your signal goes to the nearest tower and is relayed along the network. When you are in a plane, the nearest tower changes very quickly -- so quickly, in fact, that the cel phone company is not able to track your call, and thus cannot bill you. Airline airphone towers work on the same general principles but the ground towers are much farther apart.. and youve never heard complaints there. Why? Because the airlines can charge $9/min for the monopoly.
Note: yes, I did hear about the plane that was forced to land a couple weeks ago because of what they claim was a cellular phone apparently ringing in the cargo hold. If this were proven to be the actual cause, it would be a first, but Im pretty confident they will find something else.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
Seriously, this is a great development and one that will make travel much easier - much in the way that national roaming on cellphones freed us from all those damn payphones and 25-digit dialing. Bring it on!
sulli
RTFJ.
Large aircraft, such as the Boeing 747 require dozens of man-hours of maintenance for each hour they're in the air anyway. Replacing an ethernet port every couple of years would not be a big deal. The same argument could be given for the headphones offered on planes. Why doesn't the plane just take the headphone jacks out of the seat and provide wireless headphones to passengers?
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How would wireless ethernet signals affect the plane's electronic systems. I know that the reason cellular phones aren't allowed to be used in planes is that the radio signal emitted by the phone can interfere with the plane's navigation equipment. There have been several crashes linked to cell phone usage in-flight. Wouldn't it be easier to just add a RJ-45 jack next to the headphone jacks on all the seats?
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
HERE
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
They are even going so far as implementing policies of "asking" people carrying laptops with sensitive information to not work on/with that info in such a public place as an airport due to shoulder surfers and laptop thieves.
This should tons of fun for casual users but I imagine corps getting scared shitless over this. Even I would be a little nervous checking my yah00 mail.
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For an aircraft to file a weather report while in flight is common. Even as a student pilot my flight instructor had me file PIREP's with the flight service whenever I ran into weather that was not exactly as the forcast said it should be.
There are some things like cloud tops which can only be seen from above.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Which, judging from the comments, many of us are quite familiar with.
The concerns I have are mostly practical. Philosophically there is no problem for me.
Things like security, reliability, speed.
Security, of course, depends on the encryption standards they use, if any. There could be a couple of good spy movies based on this somehow. [Insert plotline here]
Reliability. This is partly a simple hardware issue, the solution to which is 'trivial', because it is "merely" a matter of getting the right equipment. Some of it is not so trivial in terms of enviromental interference. Remember, this is in Sweden. For instance, there are reports in the far north of the Northern Lights being very intense and coming quite low into the atmosphere. As seen here, for example:
There is also this page, with many interesting articles.There is this article about auroral effect at ground level. I even recall reading about aurora being *visible* at ground level, but that was long ago, and I cannot find the link. There is even this article about aurora being *audible*, however. So the effects of such enviromental factors on an aircraft at six miles up can be important.
Speed is not so much an issue internal to the aircraft, but again is a problem of interferance with the ground stations. Enviromental factors are again in play
Needless to say, I am going to be very interested with the results of these trials
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Singapore's airport provides free internet access to anyone carrying one of these cards. Works great. There are signs scattered around the terminal indicating the areas in which it works, usually with nice comfy chairs nearby. They'll even lend you a card for your laptop if you don't have one. (Unfortunately people without computers are stuck paying about US$6/hour to use the airport's machines)
This is definitely the sort of thing more airports should do - maybe I wouldn't always be so late for flights because I need to finish my work, if I knew I could take care of it in the departure lounge after checking in.
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This is not the first time this has happened. If you read Telia's press release they state "SAS will be the first European airline to implement this wireless technology on board their planes." If you read on a bit into the Tenzing site, Air Canada is starting a free Beta test of this technology here.
Now I fly a lot and this sounds like it's really going to take off, pardon the pun, but why are Air Canada and SAS the first? I would have expected this from one of the bigger airlines like United or something. Air Canada is a member or United's Star Aliance though. I guess if this works well, we may see this everywhere!
Dissenter
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
I wonder how much the NWS would pay me for a web cam uplink with GPS from my coach seat across the atlantic. The oceans are a bitch to get data from, maybe this announcement is the first step to more accurate forecasts!
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...how long it will take Apple to sue them for the use of their "Airport" TM :)
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Now if only you could log on to a Quake Arena or Half-Life server on-board and play coach section against business class.
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802.11b is showing up everywhere. Think about this for a couple of minutes and you might feel inclined to breathe a sigh of relief. This is an area where a number of players would have liked to establish a de-facto standard, potentially a closed and monopolistic one. It didn't happen. 802.11b happened, with ordinary TCP/IP and DHCP running over it. Do you realize what an impediment to Linux users it would have been, if "the standard" ended up being a closed one? I'm thankful for this. I'm looking forward to a time in the not-too-distant future where I'll be able to boot my Linux-based laptop in lots of different places -- coffee shops, airplanes, offices, perhaps even my home if I feel so inclined -- and just be on the net without any further consideration. This is one of those futuristic things that really looks like it's going to pan out just the way the dreamers imagined it. My hearty congratulations go out to the people who made it happen.
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this isn't really access. it sounds like they will have a couple of sites that are uploaded to the plane. the plane will sync w/ the groundstation "at regular intervals". you can probably send email to anywhere (message size restricted???) but you won't be able to "surf"
Am I the only person posting in this group who thinks this idea is a waste of money?
I mean, I'm as nerdy as the next guy; I really am. But cummon, who really takes that many flights longer than 2 - 3 hours. Isn't it enough that you can sit there and use your computer and get work done, do you have to be able to do real-time research and communicate with people for that whole three hours? Stuff like this can't wait until you land and take 4 minutes to get inside the airport, "Our customers already have access to wireless communications in our SAS lounges through Telia HomeRun"
In the end, any modifications the airline makes to the plane are going to raise the price of airline tickets. I don't want to pay more money for my flights so joe-asshole on his $8.00/min cell-phone can also type while I'm trying to get an hour or two of sleep.
Is there such thing as a business job that requires you to travel *and* get so much work done that you can't take a 3 hour break from being connected to the outside world? Not even a break from working, just a break from being connected... it sounds like 'too much hype' to me.
It reminds me of all the "business men" I used to sell Palm Pilots too back in my hay-day as a fledgling guru. "Whoa! I can connect to the internet with that!? anywhere?!". Guess how many of them actually do that 3 weeks after they get one... I think 90% of the guys running with leading-edge technology are actually wasting their time (and often other peoples time) figuring out how to be more efficient with their new technology.
ie: Hey, this palm pilot lets me get my email anytime i want, now I can check it on my way to work instead of when I get there. They then spend 4 hours setting it up, and save 5 minutes in their work day for a month or two until something new comes out.
Ace
"Cockpit Hacked, Plane Diverted To Amsterdam"
Let's just hope they give the flight controlls an IP.
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