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Wireless Internet Launched on Lufthansa FRA - IAD
JpMaxMan writes "On flight LH 418 from Frankfurt, Germany, to Washington, DC, Lufthansa AG began on Wednesday a three-month trial for a new
onboard wireless broadband service
that allows travelers to connect to the Internet some 10,000 meters in the sky."
In Andrew Tanenbaum's Computer Networking, he outlined the idea of a "flying LAN" as early as 1996. It's a much better approach to the problem than those godawful "airphones". (Thank God those are going away).
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
While it's better than my DSL connection, is it really enough to support up to 50 people? 3000/50 = 60, which is acceptable, comparable to dial-up. But 128/50 = 2.56! Ouch! If you've ever maxed out your upload while downloading, you'll know how it causes downloading to come to a crawl. I really think they'll need to seriously considering upping the upload speed.
The first class and business sections do have wired connections available. Adding wired connections is more expensive, so it'll be more limited. Also, newer laptops these days are likely to include wireless access, and you find very few desktop computers on planes.
Researchers have already bombarded commercial jets with all types of RF of many frequencies and varying power and found no flight threatening effects. This is due to heavely sheilded cables. The electronic device usage fear stems from cellular phone companies advising airlines not to use the phones in flight as they would have difficulting tracking the signal and the signal would reach many towers simultaneously. For the most part, RF is a non-issue. But still comply to keep the paranoid at bay.
Private aircraft on the other hand is more effected by RF than their commercial counter parts. Cell phones and ham radios have been known to crash private aircraft.
A recent story. A local car stereo business installed a TV and sound system in a private aircraft. The FAA was on that like stink on a hog. The equipment was not certified and threw out quite a mess of RF. Not to mention non of the cables were sheilded. Both the pilot and the company who installed the equipment were fined.
I recently received the device that creates the high voltage needed to strobe the lights on an aircraft along with its timer circuit. The device oscilated 24v at high frequency through a transformer and was rectified into two capacitors at 600v. this was creating noise in the radio and the part was promptly removed.
My father is a mechanic and supervisor for a private aircraft repair business. Thats how I get my info on the personal airecraft. I saw the commercial aircraft RF bombardement on Disconvery i beleive.
-Foxxz
Beginning in 2004, the service will cost between 30 (US$32) and 35 per flight. Not bad compared to for example what T-mobile charges at the airports.
The wireless is the satellite to the plane...inside there is one wired ethernet connection for every 1st class seat, and one for every two business/coach.
802.11g? maybe later....
There's a difference between interference from J. Random PhoneCo's RF signal, and the lack of interference from a tested and certified RF signal.
/.ers never get to see, being stuck in a world of commercial and open-source software. So the service will not be cheap.
Someone else posted that commerical planes are basically shielded against all forms of RF disturbance. That may be true, but it's not a certified result, afaik.
They tell you to turn your equipment off during takeoff and landing because that's when there will be insufficient time to respond by telling everyone to turn off their possible sources of interference. At 20k+ feet, you have some time to detect the problem and get on the intercom to correct it.
Boeing, not being pikers, have certified their system for use during flight. That isn't cheap. It's rigorous testing of the sort
Here's the text from the Boeing news release:
No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
why would you think the plane is too high to get a signal? the highest up you ever get is about 6.5 miles (10km) plenty of cell equipment work beyond that range. The real problem with cell phones on aircraft is that on the ground you have a strong signal to maybe two or three cell towers (line of sight, no obstruction) in the air, you can be in clear range of 10-20 cell towers. The negotiation protocol (which tower am I talking to/will talk to next?) on the phone and towers goes haywire, jamming up all the phone traffic on them. Besides, the cell phone is a decently powered (1/4-1/2watt? someone?) localized transmitter, so it can and probably will fuck a lot of avionics up.
cite a regulation
My pleasure.
Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations governes Aeronautics and Space. Part 121 covers scheduled airline operations (parts 135 and 91 cover charter-type operations and all other operations, respectively, and have similar language).As for a CD player, or a computer, or any other digital device, it does have an RF oscillator: it's called a clock (as in "clock speed"), and most of them are poorly shielded, if shielded at all. Think about it--is your CD player's case made of metal or plastic? I don't feel like retyping (or copying and editing) my previous post on the subject, but if you follow the link, you'll find a much more in-depth explanation.
--Dave Buckles
Commercial Pilot, Airplane Single and Multiengine Land
Instrument Airplane
Flight Instructor--Airplane
Instrument Instructor
2711311 CFII 06/04
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
Marketplace had a cool report on this yesterday afternoon that the reporter recorded as an MP3 file from the flight.
In the report he indicated that on first try his laptop didn't connect, but that Lufthansa had three connection specialists on the plane and were able to get him running within 5 minutes. Apparently the plane was full on reporters and other testing it out, so the connection was a little slower than is usually expected.
The thing that hit me was that they would charge up to $30 extra to use this feature. That might not be a big deal to business passengers, but I'm not sure the average person will appreciate that extra fee on their ticket.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
As pointed out elsewhere, cell phones are designed for a different environment. It is assumed throughout the design of terrestrial radio systems that you will only be able to contact one cell tower using a certain carrier frequency. The cells are laid out in a repeating pattern. If you are 'in' a cell, you are talking to it over a particular channel. All the other cells that are adjacent to YOUR cell cannot use that channel, because you are using it. BUT, move two cells away and you can reuse your channel for another person. Cells are about (let's guess) 800m to 1 km on a side.
This all works really well until you ruin this assumption.
Now, fly at 10 000m (33 000ft) and look at the same system. You are almost the exact same distance from the cell under you as the cell next to it and the cell(s) next to those ones. So, who does your phone talk to?
It fights it out and talks to many cells, or just one, but you are now interfering with many other cells, using up a huge amount of the mobile providers capacity.
In effect, this is a DOS attack for all those cells that you are not really using, but who can still hear your carrier on the channel.
There are other problems with trying to use a mobile phone on an aircraft. At 10 000m, you are 10km (~6 statute miles) from the base station. That's pretty fringe. Especially for a low power digital-mode radio that has a maximum output of around 300mW RF.
No, I don't think you'll see mobile phones on aircraft any time soon.
I used to think the same as the original poster - that RF was a non issue, and simply allowed the aircarriers to charge more for services such as airFone etc...
Now that I've spent the time and energy getting my private pilot certificate PP-ASEL (FAA standard etc...) I can tell you that the reason for not allowing 'personal electronics' on commercial aircraft during takeoff and landing is a very sound one.
Commercial flights are always on IFR flight plans. This means Instrument Flight Rules. Thie does Not mean that the flight is being conducted in clouds or other IMC, but that the controllers can expect the flight to behave according to IFR rules.
Now - IFR rules are there for a reason. One - primary navigation - if you have a plane going at any altitude above 18k feet, it has to be on an IFR flight plan, and be positively controlled (Read vectored/guided) by flight control. However, the pilots are still required at all times to avoid things like: Mountains. Many Many crashes, both commercial and private, are due to CFT - Controlled Flight into Terrain. This is when a pilot for reasons of pilot-error, or instrument error, flies a perfectly good airplane and passengers into a mountain or obstruction.
Many airports in the US have large obstructions and mountains in the vicinity of their respective airports. Compasses - while very useful as a cross check, or for VFR day flying, have significant errors accross the US (many places as high as 15 degrees - such as the SF Bay area) - and hence are not always the primary tool - particularly when they show the aircraft heading and not course (with a crosswind, the aircraft is headed somewhat sideways with respect to it's ground course). They use the radio nav aids such as VORs, NDBs, VORTACs, etc...
. There are also 'hidden' hazards such as military training routes that cover much of Northern California and Nevada - where if you veer off course by even a few miles, you could be subject to military intercept procedures, or worse: a midair with a heavy and well-build military aircraft (which often slice thru civilian aircraft). To Sum Up: Unless you want your commercial flight to end up in a mountain, I suggest people don't play with this or treat it litely.
Interference with radio navigation signals is soo easy, that in a recent safety seminar held in Oakland - a flyer was presented that emphasized IFR hold zones - zones simply to keep waiting aircraft an additional distance from the runway and landing guidance ILS/other radio services.