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JetBlue Launches Satellite-Based Inflight Wi-Fi
First time accepted submitter spineas writes "JetBlue is rolling out a new form of inflight Wi-Fi operating from satellites instead of ground-based cell towers. Up to eight times faster than traditional inflight Wi-Fi, it will enable users to stream video whilst in the air, something that is nearly impossible to do with current dial-up speed access in aircraft."
How would you like Slashdot to cover this? It's clearly within their scope, and they never claimed to have original journalism for these sorts of things, so they're left linking to other people's coverage. What Slashdot brings to the table is gathering these sorts of stories in one place and (more importantly) the comment section.
Now they can join american, united, lufhansa, and all the other carriers that have sat based wifi.
I can't even get my laptop to connect from the corner of the garden. That's some serious WiFi power!
Why can't people just relax and enjoy the peace and quiet ?
Why must they bring all those hustle and bustle into one of the last quiet spaces left ?
What peace and quiet? Airline cabins are noisy (what do think noise canceling headphones were invented for?) and uncomfortable. Some of us can sleep through this after a fashion. Others would much rather get work done so they have to time to relax somewhere that is actually relaxing.
Full disclosure: I work for the company that JetBlue is partnered with to provide the satellite link, and I work on this project specifically.
There was a media flight yesterday morning that had a bunch of aviation press on it, all trying to push the system to its limits. Here's what one blogger had to say: "Speedtests proved that the WiFi remained fast, registering between 12-28 Mbps, even with over 60 devices connected and pushing activities like Netflix Instant, Google Video Hangouts, Ustream live streaming, and Skype calls." Engadget also has more details about the media flight.
There are obviously a lot of posts about the service, but out of the ~10 that I read those had the most details about Wednesday morning's actual flight.
My friend did a speed test on JetBlue today and got 20 Mb/s. He isn't very technical so I assume he did the test on his iPhone or iPad. He said there was over 100 devices connected on his flight. He's a JB pilot but was in the back on this flight. He said the service is free until April. Take it for what it is worth.
I think I've seen sub 600ms, but on the order of 800ms may be more typical? Maybe around a second? I was on flights a few months back so I don't remember the numbers offhand. Coming from a cable connection at home I expected to find the lag to be a bit more bothersome than it was, but that could be a function of my activities (with video/audio streaming, the delay doesn't matter as much). Geo satellites are 22,000 mi up, so that's 500+ms of travel time. Which actually makes 600ms seem less realistic, so maybe that wasn't a real number. Sorry for a rambling response that doesn't really answer the question.