Disappointing inflight WiFi could soon become a thing of the past

[@TheRealDanny]

The whole concept of in-flight Wi-Fi is a relatively recent phenomena. Boeing offered the service in 2001, Airbus in 2005 and more recently GoGo in 2008.

When it was introduced the concept was formed with low bandwidth in mind meaning each flight could only offer speeds not too much faster than dial up.

Then came ground based systems that offered slow 3G like speeds. But besides being slow this service only worked while the airplane was over land meaning that sea bound flights were out of luck.

Disappointed customers are demanding faster service but the industry couldn't keep up with demand. Unlike smartphones that are designed to be upgraded often in-flight systems were built to last a decade or more so thus more of the same year after year.

But there is hope. According to Honeywell, its GX Aviation system can achieve speeds of up to 50 Mbps, ViaSat's Exede can deliver up to 12 Mbps passengers while Gogo's 2Ku service promises 15 Mbps of speed.

Finally we're going to be able to use our data in-flight the way we expect to use it.




Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...i-works-2018-9

[conscript]

Nice but that's only 12-50Mbps for the whole plane, not much bandwith when shared.
Plus they still make you pay even in buisness and 1st class, and the prices are a joke.

[@Class]

Nice but that's only 12-50Mbps for the whole plane, not much bandwith when shared.
Plus they still make you pay even in buisness and 1st class, and the prices are a joke.

For me at least, this could be enough... Being used to the coverage up in Ontario Canada, anything above 1Mbps is actually quite usable for nearly anything aside from large downloads.

1 Mbps, you can read the news, fetch email, list to music and even browse and watch youtube at 480p.