news The nation’s largest telco Telstra has built new mobile towers covering the airplane route between Sydney and Melbourne and tested mobile broadband speeds up to 15Mbps to planes in the air, in a pilot program which could one day see the telco finally solve the long-running problem of in-flight Internet access in Australia.
Australia’s largest airline Qantas has trialled in-flight Internet access in Australia over the past decade, in an attempt to mimic in-flight Internet programs in more populated countries such as the US. However, the trials have come to nothing every time. In the latest trial, conducted throughout 2012, the airline ended up concluding that the in-flight service was not used to the extent it expected; consequently Qantas abandoned the effort due to a ‘lack of demand’.
However, Telstra today revealed it had not given up the quest. In a post on the company’s Exchange blog, its Executive Director of Networks in Telstra Operations, Mike Wright, noted that the telco was working on a solution it dubs ‘Skinet’ (no relation to the SkyNet from the Terminator series of movies) which may eventually allow in-flight Internet throughout Australia.
“While Wi-Fi is provided on some commercial flights internationally, it is achieved using either 3G or Satellite technology and provides a varied customer experience,” Wright wrote. “What we are looking to do with Skinet is to establish 4G coverage in the sky for use on aircraft.”
“Using our own 4G expertise in conjunction we have constructed four dedicated mobile sites that cover most of the commercial air route from Melbourne to Sydney. These sites utilise upward facing antennas and are designed to allow users to access the network as the aircraft travels at high speed.”
“In order to test the capability, we borrowed some spectrum to run a number of test flights. We used a number of different aircraft fitted out with special terminals to pick up the signal and we were able to successfully establish and maintain data connections, achieving a maximum data throughput of 15 Mbps, with an average throughput around 10 Mbps.” Readers can see the customised antennas used by Telstra in the photo above
“These test flights are encouraging,” Wright added, “and are a significant step in the development of a potential Skinet network that might one day deliver high speed broadband connectivity to a range of aircraft-based applications that could extend from commuter use to a range of remote monitoring and control applications.”
“We will look to do additional tests later this year and take those results into account as we explore the possible economics around building a nationwide, commercial LTE network in the sky. Of course like all things wireless this also needs spectrum and we will continue to work with the relevant authorities to make this possible.”
opinion/analysis
While this is an interesting trial from Telstra, I wouldn’t expect any significant commercial deployment of this technology any time soon. There are a number of challenges in the way, ranging from the sheer physical need to deploy new mobile sites throughout Australia’s huge geography, to the spectrum challenges mentioned by Wright, to issues working with the airlines, who have never been precisely keen on having any electronic signals other than their own broadcast on board their airplanes.
There is no doubt about it — companies such as Telstra and Qantas (well, perhaps not Qantas, until it is dragged kicking and screaming to the table) will eventually solve the in-flight Internet issue. And it shouldn’t be such a huge one, given that the issue has been largely addressed on the major routes of other countries such as the US. But I don’t think it will take a year, or even two — I suspect this problem will not be solved in Australia for another five years or so. You know — the point at which people will start to demand that everyone is connected to the Internet 24×7. Those of us who aren’t already.
Image credit: Telstra
I just don’t see it happening until it is reasonably priced and a reasonable speed. One connection at 15Mbps = 0.1 Mbps per person.
While the total bandwidth may be low, people are very unlikely to be using an in-air internet service for anything but some basic messaging/emails.
I personally wouldn’t be expecting to get on a flight, even just a domestic flight, and be expecting to do any sort of heavy lifting or online gaming whilst on the plane. 100% of the passengers aren’t likely to be trying to max out the connection 100% of the time.
I have travelled in Aeroplanes with phone and broadband and they worked pretty well over the Indian Ocean.
Maybe it is harder to get it to work in Airplanes….
8-)
I don’t get it, Australians use the US and UK spelling interchangeable, what are you trying to say?
in a pilot program
heh.
nice one.
In-flight internet is a “long-running problem?”
I flew from LA to Tokyo on Singapore Airlines and they had internet for $10 for 10MB. I enabled my iPad just to see how it was. Also computers use too much data!, so I stuck to low bandwidth sites and iMessaging my wife. I’d been away a while, we watched a movie together (I watched an in-flight movie, she rented it on iTunes).
Overall worked well to have some basic contact (if phones could send and receive SMSes it would be a good start).
Last time I was on board Qantas, the safety briefing stated no transmitting device can be switched on at any time during the flight?
The last flight I was on the guy next to me was receiving and sending texts over Tweed Heads after leaving Brisbane. seemed to work ok for him.
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