New Euro-net will let you stream Snakes on a Plane on a *!#@ plane Inmarsat, Deutsche Telekom, Nokia and Thales say they have successfully conducted tests of a network capable of delivering in-flight broadband across all 28 (current) European Union nations. The European Aviation Network (EAN) will blend S-Band satellite coverage provided by Inmarsat with 300 LTE ground stations scattered …
Charge for Wifi on top of your plane ticket? Yeah right.
Add 20p to everyone's ticket and give it away, or don't bother at all.
And 75Mbps (presuming asymmetric) shared between 200 passengers, their phones (whether active or not), tablets and laptops is basically pointless. It's like 200 people sitting in your living room trying to all connect at the same time.
No way would you ever get a stream going. And that's even more reason for people to NEVER pay for it.
Seriously, people, this is 20 years overdue and still naff.
I used American Airlines' inflight WiFi on a business flight from London to LA - I think they charged something like £15 and while it was by no means "superfast" the ability to spend a few hours of an otherwise long and boring flight working (sending emails, using VPN etc) was great and definitely worth paying for.
Only weird thing was that the service seemed to be tunnelled back to T-Mobile somewhere in Germany so you kept getting sent to German versions of websites.
I'd much rather take a few hours off that I can spend at home the day before a long flight, knowing that I'll be able to get the work done while on the flight with nothing much better to do. There's not a lot you can do with your time on a long haul flight that is actually really relaxing, so might as well do work on the plane and relax at other times.
I was never able to get a good look at both the screen and the keyboard of my laptop (I can't touch type). Usually had a much better view of the top of the head of the passenger in front. This was true for both economy and business classes. On the rare occasions of first class travel I was too busy scoffing the delicious nibbles and drinks and multi-course meals ever to think of working.
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Not too many ground stations in the ocean
From the article:
The European Aviation Network (EAN) will blend S-Band satellite coverage provided by Inmarsat with 300 LTE ground stations
From the video it looks as if they are going to launch a new fleet of satellites to cope. The question is whether a good experience in Europe will lead to the system going worldwide eventually.
M.
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