In Search Of Airborne Wi-Fi

Why are we yet to be given the freedom to connect while flying?
As both frequent air travel and constant Wi-Fi connectivity are so much a part of modern, inter-connected life, it can be hard to understand why they don’t go together more seamlessly. Indeed, in 2016 – a time where we expect fast download speeds and uninterrupted streaming nearly everywhere we go on land in a developed region – it’s somewhat surprising that when it comes to the one place where we’re held captive with idle time on our hands (40,000 feet in the air) Wi-Fi is very often hard to come by.
That’s not to say that it doesn’t exist. Some estimates say that 40% of US flights have Wi-Fi, and international carriers including Lufthansa, Emirates and Qatar Airways offer it for a fee. Some airlines even offer it for free on their flights as a unique selling point for their customers. However, the list of carriers doing this—Emirates, JetBlue, Norwegian, Turkish Airlines, Air China, Philippine Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines and Nok Air—is still relatively small when you consider the potential pay-offs. But very often even when Wi-Fi is available, the cost is prohibitive, the Wi-Fi speed prevents being able to get any actual work done, and even on aircrafts where it’s advertised it’s not guaranteed to be working.
This lack of connectivity is even more surprising when you consider that the target demographic for many airlines—elite business travelers and frequent fliers—need Wi-Fi more than anyone. As struggling airlines are desperate to do anything to make themselves stand out to regular travelers, it’s surprising that so few have seized this opportunity. Indeed, a FlightView survey found that even fliers who are using Wi-Fi aren’t impressed, with “Only 28 per cent of business travelers saying they are satisfied with in-flight Wi-Fi offered by airlines.”
The picture becomes a bit clearer, though, when you learn that there has yet to be a workable business model for in-flight Wi-Fi that is beneficial to both the airlines and to the internet providers.  At present, there are two major mechanisms by which airlines can provide in-flight Wi-Fi. The first is via a network of 3G ground stations. With a provider such as GoGo, which is used widely in the US, “bandwidth can be limited to as little as 3.1Mbps (and that’s for the entire flight, not per customer),” according to TechRadar, so the limitations on user experience are obvious.
The other method is for a plane to connect to Wi-Fi via satellite, which offers higher speeds but still not quite what one would be used to on the ground. Telecoms company OnAir offers its users a choice of connecting to in-flight Wi-Fi, which means you’re beholden to the airline’s fees or a GSM mobile phone network, so you’ll pay whatever your provider’s international roaming mobile phone rates are on your own bill. Depending on your needs, either option can be quite convenient.
One might assume that since Wi-Fi is so expensive in the air, the airlines must just be charging a lot in order to make a profit, just as they do with charging exorbitant fees for baggage or blankets. But in reality, that’s actually not the case. The technology is simply not advanced enough yet to provide Wi-Fi that’s feasible for all passengers to use. And since they’re dealing with an issue of bandwidth, they can’t hope to scale in order to get the usership they need to improve the technology; the improvement has to come before mass usership does.
So, when can we look forward to in-flight Wi-Fi that’s as good as it is in our office or at home? It’s hard to say, but advancements in technology are happening. Ka-band satellites are in development which promise a capacity that’s several degrees of magnitude greater than the regular Ku-band. If that technology becomes viable sooner rather than later, we might be switching our in-flight magazines to our Netflix queues before we know it.