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.

NICE!!

[rkv]

if they made it a bit cheaper it would be better though?

Re:NICE!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The typical price of the ticket is $600 economy to $3000 business... does another $30 for internet access really matter.

Re:NICE!!

[Taladar]

If you would't use Internet you would probably read a book or magazine or two which are not exactly free (as in beer) either.

Re:NICE!!

[magarity]

if they made it a bit cheaper it would be better though?

They have to make a trade off between making it so more people can afford it versus the relatively slow connection. If you're going to pay any noticable amount for such a small time frame as a single flight then you want to get your money's worth. If too many people use it then it slows to a crawl. Then everyone complains. Keeping the price high is a way of ensuring there is a reasonable amount of bandwidth to the few who do pay.

Re:NICE!!

[mqx]

if they made it a bit cheaper it would be better though?

Sure, and it be better if high-end computing servers were cheaper too, but really: a global plane based relatively high speed internetwork is not cheap to build and run: we're talking about fitting equipment into planes, trials and testing, satellite bandwidth, the cost of satellite services, etc. This is not inexpensive.

I actually think $30 is not too bad for what you're getting. It's not for everyone, but it's within the reach of many people, considering many of us think nothing about easily spending $30 on a restaurant meal.

Not only this, but international airlines are not actually loaded with revenue that they could absorb the cost of this service into existing price you pay, and really, I wouldn't want my mother (a non internet user) to pay higher trans-atlantic fares so that she can subsidise web browsers: user pays!

I'm sure we'll see the service expand and improve in the future, but for now, it's a fairly decent start. I'm not on a 6 figure salary, yet I'd have no problems paying for this service on the 2-3 12+ hour flights I make per year.

Re:NICE!!

[rkv]

well if the mobile phone companies can convince the FCC that mobile phones can be used in the air then this 30$ service would'nt be necessary as high speed broadband connection would be available :D. so ya i still think its too much.

Re:NICE!!

[Oopsz]

You think your mobile will work over the north atlantic? and what are your data roaming charges going to be in munich/montreal/melbourne?

Re:NICE!!

[Ohreally_factor]

For someone who just wants to dick around surfing the web, it's an expensive optional luxury. It's not insanely exhorbitant, but someone who's just bored might think twice. If they're on a tight budget, they won't even seriously consider it. It's not like it's that hard to wait ten to fifteen hours to get back online (for most people =)). It's not like you'll be able to play WoW or HL2 anyway, with that kind of latency.

For someone who needs internet access to work while they're inflight, it's invaluable, a

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.

If you need slashdot on a plane...

[PyWiz]

...you might be addicted.

Slashdot on a Plane

[AtariAmarok]

Flight Attendant: "Sorry, sir. After you posted that message about the iPod on Slashdot, Cowboy Neal notified us to mod you down. You can't sit in first class anymore. Please find a seat in coach. Oh, and if you do it again? You will have to sit on the wing with the other gremlins. Gremlins? That is what we call trolls here. Look outside and you will see a few right now GNAA'ing on the wings."

Tell me about it!

[AtariAmarok]

"And while we are at it, LEARN TO LINE WRAP. Trust the browser to do it for you, man"

Tell me about it
There is this one AC
Who types every troll
like this. It makes them
all look like Haiku.

Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[flowerp]

If cou can pay $30 for Internet, try paying $30 for smoking. Let's see how far that will get you.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[oniony]

There was some guy that invented some device (a helmet if I remember correctly) that prevented the smoke from his cigarette escaping -- instead it was filtered from the air. He tried using it on a flight once and, despite his careful explanation, was forced to extinguish.

Now I'm not pro- nor anti-smoking but if it doesn't affect the other passengers I fail to see why it is not allowed.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[Reality Master 101]

Now I'm not pro- nor anti-smoking but if it doesn't affect the other passengers I fail to see why it is not allowed. 1) How are the flight people supposed to know if the his helmet even works?

2) It's FEDERAL LAW. No one smokes on an airplane, period. Are they supposed to just throw away the law because some addicted nut pulls out a helmet?

3) Unless the helmet is a full-blown bubble over his head, I find it extremely unlikely the helmet captures 100% of the smoke.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[anonicon]

"2) It's FEDERAL LAW. No one smokes on an airplane, period. Are they supposed to just throw away the law because some addicted nut pulls out a helmet?"

Depends. Are we talking about the Lesser Helmet of +5 Charisma for 8,000GP, or the Greater Helmet of +10 Charisma for 24,000GP?

>;-)

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[magarity]

Because it is a flame on an airplane. See the problem?

Plenty of people smoked like chimneys from the days of the Ford Tri-Motor to the day before the bans went into effect. I don't think there are any cases of planes crashing or otherwise coming to harm because of cigarettes. It's just a case of a confined area with nowhere for the smoke to go except in everyone else's nose. As a non-smoker, I have to say that if smokers were willing to wear an enclosed helmet to smoke on planes, I'd be all in favor

planes did in fact crash...

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

There have been many fires in aeroplanes due to smoking. I believe a Boeing 707 even crash landed near Orly (Paris) in the 70s because of that. The pilots were the only ones that didn't asphyxiate.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[wasted]

...I don't think there are any cases of planes crashing or otherwise coming to harm because of cigarettes.

I think (not totally sure) that the cause of the lavatory fire in Air Canada 797 [pilotfriend.com] on June 2, 1983, could have been a cigarette. [erau.edu]

I couldn't find a good linkable reference, but I think the 25 fatalities on an Ilyushin 18B at Guangzhou-Baiyun airport in 1982 was also caused by a fire started by a cigarette.

Another example (July 11th, 1973) can be found here [airborne.org].

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[Richard_at_work]

I dont think the safety rules are over the top. You are at 37,000 feet, if you have any sort of emergancy at that altitude its going to take you time to get on the ground, and then evacuate the aircraft, so its a case of limit dangers to only those necessary. Why endanger the aircraft needlessly jsut to pander to someones personal addiction, because thats what it is?

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[mattyrobinson69]

i think its more likely that a dodgy phone battery or something like that could cause a dangerous fire, if you drop a cigarette on your clothes, it takes a while to burn a hole - if you didn't notice it before, youve noticed it now because your now in pain. Unless your wearing one of those 80's shell suits, you'l be fine and so will everybody else (80's shell suits are illegal to sell in the uk now because theyre a fire hazard.

A small fire would be very easy to put out anyway, im sure the trolly dollies ar

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[EpsCylonB]

A small fire would be very easy to put out anyway, im sure the trolly dollies are trained to use a fire extinguisher. how many times (when smoking used to be allowed on planes) did people used to set fire to things with cigarettes?

I don't know about planes but cigarettes that aren't extinguished properly is one of the biggest causes of house fires.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[mattyrobinson69]

maybe if you go to sleep with one in your hand, i dont know.

ive never died from dropping a fag on my shirt.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

ive never died from dropping a fag on my shirt.

Was that your GNAA post?

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[Jeremi]

ive never died from dropping a fag on my shirt.

I did, once. Fortunately they offer 20,000,000 hours of free dial-up AOL access here in hell.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[Richard_at_work]

i think its more likely that a dodgy phone battery or something like that could cause a dangerous fire, if you drop a cigarette on your clothes, it takes a while to burn a hole - if you didn't notice it before, youve noticed it now because your now in pain. Unless your wearing one of those 80's shell suits, you'l be fine and so will everybody else (80's shell suits are illegal to sell in the uk now because theyre a fire hazard.

Smoking is the second biggest cause of housefires in the UK and the primary

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[mattyrobinson69]

let the non-smokers have a window open (joke)

although a solid door would stop the smoke getting to the non-smoking section, especially with air filters in both sections.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[LnxAddct]

You have a problem and you need help. You are trying to justify smoking on a plane. You can't go a few hours without a smoke? People are doing a favor for your life, how many tmes has it been proven that smoking kills you, and kills you quickly. I'm so glad my city is banning smoking, you people contribute nothing but ill effects to the rest of society. Take a hint and try to quit, its a dirty disgusting habit that shortens your life. It doesn't even calm you until you've become addicted to it. Stop trying to jsutify your actions and instead correct them. Don't force your smoke on other passengers or employees of the airport. If you want to kill yourself, confine it to your house.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[rocketfairy]

Wow, smokers contribute nothing to society? Take that, Winston Churchill!

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[JonyEpsilon]

I'm confused. Are you talking about smoking or slashdot ?

The smokers forced the ban

[AtariAmarok]

I remember when it was allowed. Smokers routinely smoked in the non-smoking section, and threw burning trash on the floor of the plane.

Re:Will $30 more also get you smoking rights?

[mattyrobinson69]

i accept that smoking smells, but i was talking about wearing one of those helmet things the parent of your parent was talking about.

Airplane smoking helmets

[AtariAmarok]

"but i was talking about wearing one of those helmet things the parent of your parent was talking about."

Those airplanes are crowded enough, but imagine it with a bunch of people in the seats wearing giant bubble "Great Gazoo" helmets. Then there is the problem of when you go to sleep, and the jerk in the seat next to you tapes over the filter's outside air vent. You peacefully pass away without a struggle.

Such a silly analogy

[AtariAmarok]

Your analogy might fit a little if it was anywhere comparable. When was the last time someone insisted on running a gasoline combustion engine at a restaurant in order to "relax"?

Lighting fires just so you can breath the smoke for the fun of it does seem to be an odd recreational activity. As long as the smoke stays with you, I have no problem with it. Go ahead, wear the helmet :)

tcptraceroute

[Barbarian]

Remember that some providers give UDP packets low priority. I'd be more impressed if he'd run tcptraceroute.

Re:tcptraceroute

[drdink]

Windows uses ICMP ECHO for tracerouting.

Offtopic, but..

[CdBee]

... Great SIG.

Does it ever work? - it had me puzzled for a while because I couldn't click on it...

Boeing technology

[thammoud]

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

Re:Boeing technology

[Abstract_Me]

The article says its slow and expensive but the connexionbyboeing website advertises it being fast and cheap! which one do i beleive?!

Re:Boeing technology

[MathFox]

If you've read the connexionbyboeing website a bit better: The plane has an 1 Mbit connection (or better). Unfortunately the data is routed via a satellite, so the link has pretty high latency.

One of my friends has downloaded a Knoppix CD on one of his transatlantic flights.

Re:Boeing technology

[daviddennis]

Depends on your definition of expensive, of course.

For instance, Apple's Xserve RAID is often considered inexpensive because it's about a third the price of other RAID solutions for similar storage space. It's still over $10,000 for a loaded configuration, so most people wouldn't think of it as that cheap. But people who need it just might.

Right now, you can get from LAX to Frankfurt, Germany with one stop for $454 tourist class. There are some lucky souls willing to pay $11,825 for a first-class ticke

Re:Boeing technology

[ZorinLynx]

I've always found it odd that first-class tickets are so outrageously priced. You'd think if someone is smart enough to become rich, they'd be smart enough not to throw away so much money on a first-class ticket.

If more rich folk were smart enough to not shred their money in this fashion, perhaps first-class tickets wouldn't be so outrageously priced?

Hmm. Makes ya wonder. }:)

-Z

Re:Boeing technology

[BigGerman]

If you got your big money by actually working for it (started a biz, banker, broker, bigtime writer, doctor, lawyer,..) it is your TIME that counts.
That is why I'd pay first class price to be able to travel without getting worn out in coach because I would be able to do some real work on the plane and be able to get to productive work faster AFTER the plane ride.

Re:Boeing technology

[magarity]

I find it quite amusing that Connexion by Boeing is being used on an Airbus.

Re:Boeing technology

[Oopsz]

Why? Boeing will fit their addons to a bombardier business jet if you pay them to. Airplanes are just too darn expensive for boeing to be able to use internet access as leverage.

Re:Boeing technology

[mzwaterski]

Seem to me that the grandparent meant that another company is willing to pay Boeing (their competitor) to provide a service on their flights.

Re:Boeing technology

[magarity]

It's amusing because the competition between Boeing and Airbus is exceptionally bitter. Once an airline acquires a given aircraft, of course, the manufacturer is powerless to prevent them from installing parts or services from the competitor. This is a bit like a BMW with Onstar.

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.

Re:Is $30 really that bad?

[FidelCatsro]

In a comparitive way as to the cost of food and wine then its not really that bad atall , what is $30 in food a meal and a couple bottles of wine which i would have otherwise paid to suffer the flight .
On the other hand the food and drink on airplanes is Completly overpriced and well im sure you can figure out the problems with the ethics of pricing it so high to a captive audiance

get a thinnet client

[way2trivial]

get a ce device with 800X600 or better resolution, and terminal services..

get a smartpanel... like a viewsonic v150

5-11 hr batterylife- runs YOUR desktop over wifi
the aforementioned airpanel ONLY runs remotedesktop (without hacks) but ce devices run other apps when not connected as well..

add a HMD with it's own powersupply, and have 10-20 hrs battery life..

Re:Is $30 really that bad?

[sultanoslack]

I fly these Lufthansa routes fairly often and you're looking at ticket prices of $600 - $900, generally. Granted, you're generally already paying a bit extra to fly Lufthansa (about $50 - $100 more than competitors, generally), but they've got some of the best service to be found with any major international carrier.

Really, at that point the $30 doesn't make much of a difference. The things that you have to consider is that these flights are around 6-10 hours and most folks don't have batteries that last

Mile High Club?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all the slashdot geeks flying on Lufthansa, this also gives you the opportunity to join the mile high club - solo!

VoIP

[NetStatic]

It would be interesting, once the latency goes down a bit, if you could run VoIP over the connection, bringing cheap(er) phone services. Those Verizon Airphones are really expensive.

Re:VoIP

[melonman]

once the latency goes down a bit

What, when the speed of light increases a bit? I'm typing this on a terrestial satellite connection, and that's about the latency you get.

You can do VoIP over this sort of connection, you just have to get used to the fact that there's about a second's lag, and, if you can hear yourself on the remote speakers, a 2-second echo.

Here's part of my traceroute...

3 firewall (192.168.1.1) 3.067 ms 7.553 ms 12.684 ms
4 172.31.254.253 (172.31.254.253) 4.062 ms 5.199 ms 6.160 ms
5 172.16.128.19 (172.16.128.19) 631.013 ms 583.867 ms 1562.693 ms
6 172.16.64.61 (172.16.64.61) 1658.335 ms 1537.707 ms 1099.666 ms
7 172.16.100.1 (172.16.100.1) 1156.839 ms 1302.108 ms 1372.232 ms
8 iamrt01p.idc.aramiska.net (172.16.101.254) 794.488 ms 528.926 ms 569.041 ms
9 213.181.59.142 (213.181.59.142) 602.372 ms 606.007 ms 732.337 ms
10 cbu-pcbru11-pecbru21-pos31.car.belbone.be (213.181.59.198) 707.791 ms 782.617 ms 619.338 ms
11 so-6-1-2-bcr1.bru.cw.net (206.24.147.189) 743.572 ms 759.283 ms 732.355 ms
12 so-5-1-0-dcr2.par.cw.net (195.2.10.34) 906.991 ms 770.496 ms 628.550 ms
13 as0-dcr1.par.cw.net (195.2.10.161) 904.086 ms 658.604 ms 1547.670 ms
14 so-0-0-0-dcr1.was.cw.net (195.2.10.117) 670.472 ms 822.322 ms 698.954 ms
15 dcr1-so-2-0-0.Washington.savvis.net (206.24.238.17) 620.367 ms 654.039 ms 711.492 ms
16 dcr2-loopback.SanFranciscosfo.savvis.net (206.24.210.100) 848.040 ms 795.551 ms 879.444 ms
17 bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net (208.172.156.198) 1360.829 ms 994.331 ms 758.175 ms
18 csr1-ve240.SantaClarasc8.savvis.net (66.35.194.34) 1306.824 ms 1061.993 ms 861.418 ms
19 66.35.212.174 (66.35.212.174) 1148.671 ms 1076.630 ms 696.751 ms
20 slashdot.org (66.35.250.150) 983.516 ms 1103.163 ms 778.011 ms

Re:VoIP

[melonman]

There are also a cluster of problems connected with how satellite connections handle character data. The satellite hop is converted from IP packets to something streaming, and then the packets are rebuilt at the other end. That process (the details of which I don't pretend to understand) works very well for streaming data, and very badly for a couple of typed characters a second. The worst case I have come across is ssh, which can lag by 5 seconds on occasions, which I think is either because some of the h

Skynet anyone?

[Billy_D_Goat]

Would this be any relation to Skynet perhaps? Flynet: Skynet's little sister.

0wned!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you should have updated you XP to SP2 before putting you IP address on /. dude!

Now let us see if we can crank up the volume and start playing back those interesting "documentaries" you've got in:

c:\Program Files\Accounting\Private\Pervysnsluts_2004_njr_rel .avi

Heh

[tmasky]

I wonder who's insecure laptop is going to join the Mile High club first.

Mwuhahahahha

[evil-osm]

ping -f -s1460 172.16.64.1

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[raju1kabir]

ping -f -s1460 172.16.64.1

Um, you do know what network 172.16 is in, right? Next will you be launching a DOS against 127.0.0.1?

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[magarity]

ping -f -s1460 172.16.64.1

Congrats on flooding your own router with packets it doesn't know where to send.

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[sethadam1]

Nice work.

172.16 is a private class B IP address, like 10.x.x.x is class A and 192.168.x.x is class B. You've just unleashed a packet storm on your own subnet that will never pass the first router.

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[sethadam1]

er...192.168.x.x is class C. Sorry for that typo.

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[drdink]

Please stop propagating the myth of classful routing. 172.16.0.0 is neither class B, class C, or any other class. It is 172.16.0.0/12. This is CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing). Please see RFC 1519 [faqs.org] about CIDR and RFC 3330 [faqs.org] about 172.16.0.0/12 and other special use IP addresss.

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[sethadam1]

You'll note my reply to myself where I said that 192.168 is class C.

Explain to me why *I'm* the problem with routers? Because a post to Slashdot didn't include that specific information? Whatever.

Re:Mwuhahahahha

[BLAG-blast]

ping -f -s1460 172.16.64.1

Nooooooooooooooooooooo! That's my IP address dude!

Back in September...

[beebware]

When I went to Tokyo from Heathrow, London, UK via Munich, Germany - the Munich to Tokyo flight (all the route was by Luthansa German Airlines), they had wireless internet access by Boeing Connexions. If you look out at airport (Munich had them in September when I flew), you may be able to get a $10 free internet access voucher. Just a quick note: The internet access is WiFi, so you will need an appropriate Wifi card - I took plenty of network cables, but my Wifi card for my laptop was "faulty" so I didn't

Re:Back in September...

[magarity]

It's worth also pointing out that at least in "cattle class" there are NO charging points,

Be more selective about what flight you take. Older planes have none, but most newer ones have 12v adapters in CC every third row or so. Pick your plane and pick your seat and you can have power in the cheap section.

Re:Back in September...

[Marton]

They (Lufthansa) have AC outlets in business class (and of course in first), it accepts a European or a non-grounded US plug. They even have USB outlets for charging a PDA...

They also have a CAT-5 connector right next to the USB port. It does not seem to be hooked up to anything meaningful though.

pw3n3d

[_ph1ux_]

OH Man, those ping times are really gunna get me fragged!!

This is a cool service, but farking expensive. I would only use this when on a work flight where I can expense the cost. Thats a months worth of DSL in most places.

I'd rather stick to playing games on my flights - the only problem with that is that I usually end up bringin 5 extra batteries for my D600, which adds up to a few pounds. and games like HL2 on this machine mean I have to change the battery much more often.

Wow!

[LiquidCoooled]

Step 11 on the traceroute was really interesting.

11 581538 ms 582667 ms 6659876 ms mgs.nasa.mars.net

Latency?

[powerline22]

Funny, someone from Apple was a bit bored during one flight, so they fired up iChat AV and had a videoconference at 30,000 feet, and it was fine.

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)

The only time I could lose in HALO and...

[IronChefMorimoto]

Playing HALO PC multiplayer from 30K feet kind of gives me immunity from "no0b" accusations, seeing as I'm a l337 airborne hax0r with this service. Sadly, I will get my ass kicked with those pings, but, by god, I'll be a pioneer of the Mile High Gaming Club.

IronChefMorimoto

P.S. - Wait a minute. I suck at HALO PC multiplayer on the ground.

Flying halo

[AtariAmarok]

"Playing HALO PC multiplayer from 30K feet kind of gives me immunity"

Eventually, Microsoft will have its own airline with X-boxes built into every seat. Watch out for the blue turbulence of death, however.

Thought he was pretty cool...

[ari_j]

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

Man, I thought he was leet until I saw that. What a shame.

That said, I really don't think this is cost-justified for most people. $30 for the flight to slowly read e-mail and such, things that you can just as easily (and more quickly) do on the ground before or after the flight. There certainly exist situations in which this is worth the money, but the cool factor alone doesn't cover it, at least not for me.

This could make air travel pay off!

[AtariAmarok]

1. Pay $30 for email in airplane
2. Login and check email
3. Receive Nigerian offer to give you $15,000
4. Profit!

A longhaul ticket will set you back at least $1000

[agraupe]

So what's an extra $30 dollars? Since I'm training to be a pilot, I'm hoping that, by the time I have enough hours to captain longhauls, they have this in the cockpit :)

Re:A longhaul ticket will set you back at least $1

[hawaiian717]

A longhaul ticket will set you back at least $1000 No, it won't. I just priced Omaha, Nebraska to Munich, Germany on Orbitz, April 10 returning April 17, and was quoted $759 on Air France (some flights are codeshare segments operated by Delta).

Re:A longhaul ticket will set you back at least $1

[agraupe]

Oh... I'm sorry... 760 dollars. My point still holds that $30 dollars isn't much more, and I was thinking in Canadian dollars... so, $55 to $1000 or $30 to $760. Either way, it's hardly a huge expense.

Re:A longhaul ticket will set you back at least $1

[agraupe]

I am hoping it goes a bit faster than that... and remember, not all longhauls are on airlines. I could, conceivably, be a corporate pilot on a Gulfstream V, BBJ, or ACJ, which all have overseas range, much sooner.

coverage

[rillian]

I tried this flying from Frankfurt to Vancouver last year. It was great for the first couple of hours, but the connection stopped working somewhere around iceland.

I don't know if it was a technical problem or a coverage issue with the latitude, but I was very very disappointed. $30 for 10 hours is expensive. $30 for 2 hours is insane.

Re:coverage

[Marton]

You should try to get a refund for your $30 then. :)

For what it's worth, they were *supposed* to have Internet flying in to New York from Frankfurt as well. WiFi worked, and I got the pages served from the onboard portal, but clicking the purchase link (that takes you to a server on the ground) resulted in "Page cannot be displayed" errors. Or "The operation timed out" errors in Firefox. Of course, the stewardess could not really help me. I told her that even though their onboard WiFi is up, the satellite

Mile high club?

[Linker3000]

Just to confirm that masturbating to online porn at 10Km (33,000ft) does *NOT* qualify you for membership of the mile-high club.

Satellites

[HermanAB]

Well duh, considering how high the satellites are, service can only get better with altitude...

Profit!

[Gudlyf]

1. Pay the $30 fee for your in-flight connection.
2. Connect your own pocket wireless AP [dlink.com] to your laptop.
3. Offer the rest of the plane access to your AP for $10.
4. Profit! (?)

As the Photon Flies

[Doc Ruby]

I remember when mcmurdo.gov used to reply to pings - from Antarctica. They had a 500ms latency to NYC. The plane/ground hop should be faster over radio than that distance over fiber, because it's truly straight line, and without optoelectronic routers every few miles. And my early 1990s McMurdo pings were over (largely) copper, which doesn't even move signals at lightspeed. Half a second is long enough for packet radio to travel 150,000Km. Why does this system need so much latency, when it's at most 12,000K

Re:As the Photon Flies

[Marton]

The technology is satellite based. If they're using geostationary satellites (and I don't see why they wouldn't) then you have to deal with a fair bit of latency. Your ping goes to the satellite, then to the ground, then to the satellite, then to the plane. This is 4x an Earth-satellite distance, and geostationary satellites are on an orbit about 35,000 kilometers high.

35,000 x 4 = 140,000 kilometers. Even the light can only cover 299700 kilometers per second - there you have your .5 second delay.

Re:As the Photon Flies

[Marton]

Well, ping and tracert measure round-trip time. So it is plane->satellite->ground->satellite->plane.

Ummm

[Danathar]

Think about it...

Fire....pressurized cabin....no place to run (20,000 feet up).

Do you need a smoke THAT bad

Thanks

[StikyPad]

Thanks for posting the IP address of the plane.

Sincerely,
Al Hackeera

maybe it's just me...

[argStyopa]

But is it so wrong that there is a place where you CAN'T get email, CAN'T be contacted, CAN'T be responsible to work?

As someone who flew to 5 countries in the last 4 weeks, and has spent about 50% of his time traveling since 12/26/04, the only thing that stops it from totally sucking is the fact that I can "power down" while flying and have some quiet time.

My boss hears it's only $30 more for me to be 'connected' all this time, and guess who's going to be held responsible to make sure those 'urgent' emails get a response next time I'm between Iceland and Minneapolis?

I don't see this as such a wonderful thing. :(

Re:The new Boeing/Airbus consortium

[psyconaut]

It's a Boeing *satellite* service. Boeing don't just make planes, f00l! ;-)

-psy

Re:The new Boeing/Airbus consortium

[Tx]

It's not just for Boeing aircraft. From the connexion web site:

Installation
The system can be installed on any aircraft with a seating capacity of 100 or more during a scheduled maintenance interval. Connexion by Boeing is currently working with aircraft manufacturers to develop the capability for in-line production installations.

Re:The new Boeing/Airbus consortium

[Richard_at_work]

If you dont believe him, there here ya go:

Connexion by Boeing airborne Internet in airline service [ainonline.com]
Its primarily EU airlines that have so far started using Connexion, while the US airlines lag far behind, so its no surprise that it would be in use on Airbus aircraft.

Re:streaming movies..

[luvirini]

Some of the newer inflight enteetainment systems seem to allready be quite nice. I recently flew an Emirates flight in economy and you could select from 15 movies, about 20 games, 30+ radio channels, couple dozen Audio books and some others. All the movies were fully rewindable, stoppable and so on. Defnitely enough stuff for atleast few flights.

Air Radio

[AtariAmarok]

"a radio for keeping up with ATC."

What/where do you fly that lets you listen to the radio? Always, when I fly, they say no radio ever. Or are you just ignoring the stewardess' demands?

Re:Air Radio

[xyzzy]

On United, channel 9 on the in-flight entertainment system is usually a patch-in to ATC, at least on domestic (US) flights. There may be a few other airlines that do this as well.

Flamebait

[AtariAmarok]

Beware, Joe Camel is moderating today. I was modded down for saying something similar.

Re:Not being on Lufthansa is nothing to cry about

[uradu]

You must be thinking of Delta, because those were my exact experiences flying them to Europe the last two times. I was actually actively insulted and yelled at. Can't say I ever experienced that sort of thing on Lufthansa, and the planes were nicer than the MD-11 cattle cars. I'm not sure how many people will share your opinion of Lufthansa. I'd put them up there with SAS and Qantas.