How Does Inflight Wifi Work?

Ans.

In the past, there was no connectivity to mobile towers few hundred feet above the ground (after takeoff). Travelers have to wait until the aircraft lands at the airport to use their Smartphone. This is an old story, technology has been changed a lot since then. Similar to our mobile network, Inflight Wi-Fi connectivity requires a base station to send and receive signals. It works in two modes; Ground based connectivity and Satellite based connectivity. Air to Ground (ATG) Ground based connectivity: Ground based connectivity also known as Air to Ground connectivity works exactly like our conventional mobile network. It has a base station on the ground with antenna arrays facing upwards to maintain signal connectivity to moving airplanes. Network of base stations are required to cover a large geographical area. Transceiver antenna module will be installed on the belly of an airplane. Latency is lower since the airplane is only 35000 feet above ground (average approximation) Less complex compared to satellite based system. Operators can make use of existing network for this task. Cost effective solution and infrastructure. Easy to maintain the system. Satellite based connectivity: Satellite based connectivity uses a network of satellites dedicated to provide data connectivity to moving airplanes. Transceiver antenna module will be installed on top of airplane. Each satellite can server more number of aircrafts at same time. Fast network using higher bandwidth signals compared to ground based system. More immune to atmospheric changes.