I can't excuse all the nodes in that traceroute, but the ones with a domain "direcpceu" are Hughes Communication satellite ISP nodes. Their satellites are geosynchronous, so, for two legs in each direction, those packets went a very long way before reaching the ground and coming back to the plane.
Thanks for that. I was wondering where the transition from air to land was. Makes sense they route through Satellites. It makes it more interesting because your packets are going from 39,000 feet to space then to land. Awesome
I started this trace-route within 30 seconds after the seatbelt sign was switched off (the wifi isn't enabled while taking off), so I imagine only a few people would have had the time to connect to the wifi at this point.
But in general, the wifi on one of these flights is very useless. I was hacking on a node.js project and used it to look up some ES5 related stuff on StackOverflow. I tried to post it to gist.github.com while in the air but wasn't even able to load the page (though google and SO loaded fine)
I also tried to comment on a post on Stack Overflow. The first 5 times I clicked the button, I got a timeout and had to try again. But in the end some lucky guy got a response on SO from 10km above Europe ;)
GoGo in-flight wireless in the USA is using a terrestrial network that piggybacks on cell towers. I've had 1.5 Mbit with ~400 mSec ping times, which is a lot more usable than the satellite systems.
Next time you get the chance to ask astronauts something (in the Netherlands we had that once with Andre Kuipers I think), ask them to do a traceroute from space!
I wonder if it would be practical to install upwards facing antennas on cell tower and then have a tracking dish on planes track these to cut out the satellite when over (populated) ground. If a line-of-sight microwave link could be established, it should be possible to have high-bandwidth low-latency connectivity in the air.
What is the effective beamwidth of a microwave antenna that needs to maintain a 50-100km link? Would the ground antennas need to be tracking as well?
Last couple flights I've usually seen latency between 300ms and 3500ms, 8-10% packet loss. They also seem to use Squid proxy, which doesn't understand WebSockets.
This is _exactly_ what Aircell does in the US. I'm not sure what spectra they're using, but the bandwidth would likely be quite variable, as planes with non-directional antennas will interact with one another over wide areas. Weather could also play a part, depending on the frequency.
Tracking aircraft is not practical unless you're going to use a phased array, and the problem you'll run into then is how large the cells are when you're pointing towards the sky, reducing spectrum separation.
A minor nitpick: I think the author means simply the airline known as "Norwegian", formally "Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA". "Norwegian Airlines" makes them sound like our main carrier, while they are in fact a (very popular and vastly successful) low cost, point-to-point-only, no-frills one.
Southwest apparently uses Row44 for in-flight WiFi. When it even works, it's absurdly slow. So slow that I'd gladly take a dial-up modem experience instead. On top of this, the company insists on slapping up a banner on the top of every webpage. If I click the "go away" button, I have to wait 30 seconds for the page to re-load. [Yes, I'm sure GreaseMonkey, etc. could rescue me] I fly on Southwest so often that I receive free WiFi, but I rarely use it. Even logging in is a multi-minute ordeal. I can't see how Row44 can generate enough revenue to justify its existence given the abysmal user experience.
Not that I care, but do the people who are down voting me, care to explain why? I don't think my comment was derogatory or anything, I just failed to understand why this article was amusing, and wanted to know what makes it interesting. I am sure other people might have the same question, and would have benefitted from the answers.
[+] [-] Zigurd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watson|13 years ago|reply
But in general, the wifi on one of these flights is very useless. I was hacking on a node.js project and used it to look up some ES5 related stuff on StackOverflow. I tried to post it to gist.github.com while in the air but wasn't even able to load the page (though google and SO loaded fine)
[+] [-] watson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DigitalSea|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lflux|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mseebach|13 years ago|reply
What is the effective beamwidth of a microwave antenna that needs to maintain a 50-100km link? Would the ground antennas need to be tracking as well?
[+] [-] state_machine|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet
Last couple flights I've usually seen latency between 300ms and 3500ms, 8-10% packet loss. They also seem to use Squid proxy, which doesn't understand WebSockets.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jof|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] homeomorphic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShabbyDoo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|13 years ago|reply
I think it's using a satellite network in orbit just like people with rural internet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PanAmSat
[+] [-] themurph|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ubersync|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alan_cx|13 years ago|reply
Now, tell me, did you really honestly not know that? I bet you did ;)
[+] [-] ubersync|13 years ago|reply