Internet Access 10 Kilometers High Up In The Air

Marton writes "Lufthansa started rolling out their Flynet service in 2004. It is now available on several long-haul flights such as 411D - the one I'm sitting on right now. It is not cheap ($30 for the duration of a flight) nor is it very fast (satellite-based technology can't deliver the snappy response you are used to on the ground) but it is really, really nice. It's great to be able to check my email, catch up with some work, or just surf the web - airplane time used to be about napping, paperbacks or crappy movies. Now if only they'd let me have a cigarette I could actually be productive too. " Marton also gave us a traceroute which is attached... I'm going to Tokyo in May and crying that Northwest won't have this.

Here's a traceroute from my laptop which is currently on an A-340 10,000 meters up in the air, doing about 800 kilometers per hour, somewhere over the Atlantic bound for Munich.

C:\Documents and Settings\Marton>tracert www.slashdot.org

Tracing route to www.slashdot.org [66.35.250.151]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 3 ms 2 ms 172.16.64.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms cbb-cds-psn.by.boeing [172.16.0.18]
3 3 ms 4 ms 2 ms sbs.by.boeing [172.31.0.1]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 568 ms 626 ms 576 ms 10.8.20.38
6 703 ms 567 ms 583 ms ltn02r03-vlan25.connexionbyboeing.net [10.8.20.2]
7 580 ms 705 ms 582 ms ltn02r21-fa2-9.connexionbyboeing.net [10.8.16.25]
8 627 ms 582 ms 632 ms 10.8.16.33
9 579 ms 581 ms 581 ms ltn02r01-fa3-3.connexionbyboeing.net [10.8.16.130]
10 619 ms 582 ms 582 ms ltn02r02-fa3-3.connexionbyboeing.net [10.8.16.131]
11 581 ms 582 ms 665 ms 12.125.155.5
12 655 ms 912 ms 1072 ms gbr1-a31s1.dvmco.ip.att.net [12.127.4.134]
13 1144 ms 1612 ms 1939 ms gbr1-p60.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.1.29]
14 1500 ms 712 ms 580 ms tbr2-p013301.sffca.ip.att.net [12.122.12.133]
15 613 ms 579 ms 582 ms 12.122.80.57
16 589 ms 608 ms 790 ms dcr1-so-3-0-0.sanfranciscosfo.savvis.net [192.205.32.110]
17 588 ms 605 ms 582 ms dcr2-loopback.SanFranciscosfo.savvis.net [206.24.210.100]
18 609 ms 1774 ms 1079 ms bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [208.172.156.198]
19 610 ms 968 ms 1108 ms csr1-ve243.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net [66.35.194.50]
20 1109 ms 886 ms 998 ms 66.35.212.174
21 630 ms 860 ms 994 ms star.slashdot.org [66.35.250.151]

Trace complete.

Comments

Boeing technology

[thammoud]

A link to the real provider to this technology.
http://www.connexionbyboeing.com/

Is $30 really that bad?

[Demonspawn]

I havn't flown in a LONG time, so I don't know what the price would be for a long flight like the ones that have this service. I realize compared to the prices of ground service it's horably expensive (vs. a month long contract), but thinking of it as an 'add on' to the ticket, what percentage of the ticket cost is it? If you are dealing with a $300 ticket, then it's only a 10% rider.

Of course, if you are taking one of those $59 flights I see advertised, you'd be thinking the cost is insane.

sharing?

[cbc1920]

What's to stop someone from purchasing the access and then sharing it with everyone on the plane through an ad-hoc wireless bridge? (except for those pesky regulations)

Re:NICE!!

[KanSer]

30$ is not bad for a trans-atlantic hop. I've done San fran to Frankfurt on Lufthansa many many times, and while the service is impeccable, those 10 hours sure would go easier with a net connection.

For any of Lufthansa's long haul flights 30$ is very reasonable. The next logical step would be to wire up every seat with an ethernet port (which I imagine this service provides) and set up a LAN. Think about the new A380s, formerly the A3XX or the 400-800 seat true double decker planes.

800 people, lets say San Fran to Frankfurt or Munich, what do you think the odds are that at least 20 people have a laptop with some games. Hello, wouldn't fragging at 35,000 feet be awesome? Even better if the plane hosted old-school games (doom 2, quake 1) so people wouldn't need to all have it installed.