Wireless internet on transatlantic flights.

[Tonic Please]

Hi all.

Air Canada, Halifax to London and back. Laptop computer. Wireless internet based in Canada. Does the wireless work on the plane? Will it work to a certain distance from Canada until the signal goes or does it get followed across the atlantic?

Idea is that we could chat on MSN whilst one is in the air.

Interested in the technicalities behind it all.

Dan

[alexban]

Hy.Does you wireless laptop work on a canadian highway?Or in the forrest?
Usually ,the wireless signal is send to a distance of merely 30 m from the antena,so you should stay in the cafe in order to use their wireless provided service.
If the plane has a system for wireless connection of personal laptops or pda's then it should work.Otherwise,the moment you're inside the plane you'll see no signal on your device.
So,you should check with the airline company if they provide wiless acces onboard of their airplanes.

[Tonic Please]

Thank you for your reply. I thought it was airline specific, hence writing Air Canada with the ruote (thinking there would be people knowing the aircraft this whether it exists).

Ill email air canada whilst I leave this thread here.

Thanks once again. Dan.

[Old Smokey]

Hi Tonic Please,

Send us a PPruNe post from mid Atlantic, and you'll get about 973 responses of the viability of the system:E

Happy (Off-Line) flying,

Old Smokey

[Tonic Please]

:} :ok:

Point taken. Clearly I'm no wireless expert. I just had a Lufthansa thing in mind as I remember *something* about them introducing *something* on their flights, and I thought it was internet.

I shall tell my Canadian friend that our FL370 chat will not take place :{

Woulda been pretty cool though eh?

[Fly3]

You need to fly with an airline that has Connexion or similar. Singapore Airlines has this service on their B744's plying between Singapore and London. Was on trial when I used it but they plan to charge a flat rate per sector when that is over. I believe they plan two rates: one for flights up to 6 hours and another for flights more than 6 hours.

[IE_flyer]

Systems such as Connexion (there is also a similar product from ARINC) have two elements. On the aircraft itself there is a series of wireless LAN antennas, similar to what you would have in your home or in an Internet cafe. This provides the ability to connect locally on the aircraft to the wireless signal. This element uses standard 802.11b/g technology, exactly the same as what's supported in most laptops today.

The second element is the connectivity to the Internet itself. There is a satellite connection to a ground station owned by the provider, with the antenna for this usually mounted on the top of the aircraft.

You can see what this antenna looks like in this picture: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/991536/L/

From the ground station, there is onward connectivity to the Internet, allowing continuous coverage throughout the flight.

Hope this helps!

[Algy]

Here's when it was done. (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78251)