Air France offers a wireless connection to the Internet in two of its planes since January 12. An experiment in which we could be part time for a round-trip Paris-Geneva.
The Wi-Fi in the air in Europe, perhaps soon. Air France is testing this technology with the operator Orange on two of its A320 aircraft in France and Europe. We boarded one of them to test the service.
Level technology, Orange has chosen to use a satellite connection. Moreover are distinguished on the outside of the aircraft that the radome acts as a protective shell to the satellite antenna. Inside, there is one server for video catalog and six Wi-Fi antennas to distribute the wireless connection to all passengers.
The commercial offer is simple: a “pass connectivity” for internet access at 5 euros and six television channels when flying over France and 10 euros in Europe and / or a “pass entertainment” for watching movies, TV or play sets. No limit of data or connection time, each pass is valid time of a flight.
A very good download speed
We measured several times the speed of flow with the Speedtest app on an iPhone, an Android tablet and a laptop running Windows. We sat among the passengers and several tens to connect us together on the network. Results: scores in downlink speed (download) were very satisfactory: between 9 and 14 Mbit / s, that is to say of the order of a good ADSL connection. Performance was however much less flattering regarding the amount of bandwidth (upload): 0.20 to 0.52 Mbit / s, well below an ADSL connection which is quite traditional for a wireless network -fi shared by many machines.
On the table, that is to say, the time of the response of the connection that lets you know how long to and from information on the network, the result is catastrophic with extremely high figures exceeding 700 ms. Normal because the signal has to reach the satellite. Unable to consider playing networked therefore, the lag will be just too embarrassing. These small slowdowns are also felt for other uses, without this impacting surfing or downloads, for example.
No access to Netflix
We were able to easily download applications online, check our mails, surf the Web, watch videos on YouTube, watching television, and movies via the aircraft’s server, or create and view documents in the cloud. Unable, however, to make voice or video calls. But Air France plans anyway to curb this type of use to avoid noise between passengers.
Netflix was inaccessible, a volunteer for clamping of copyright issues which are specific for the air and managed by companies specializing in entertainment on board as the American Eagle Global Entertainment. It is the latter that manages the catalog of movies and TV shows on board and delivered a turnkey solution for Wi-Fi network equipment of the aircraft. It provides these services to over 150 companies worldwide.
Staying connected takeoff and landing
The big highlight of the system is the gate to gate. The user can log in as soon as he sat on the plane, including during takeoff and landing. This is a first in Europe. It must, however, prior to his smartphone on airplane mode, to disconnect from the network operator, before activating the Wi-Fi only.
In the end, we found this rather successful experience with a connection quite comfortable enough for a trip to Europe and conventional uses. The prices are reasonable, given what is already being done abroad, where the connection can be sold up to 11 euros an hour and a package 20 euros for a long haul.
The experiment will last three months. Technically, no obstacle is opposed to wider deployment. It remains to know the appetite and passenger use. It is on that basis that Air France and Orange will decide. This choice will not be made lightly given the prohibitive cost of equipment and installation time. Each aircraft must indeed be immobilized for ten days for this.
But you can bet that there will be perhaps easier tomorrow an internet connection on a plane than in the train or subway in France!
BFM.tv (via Google Translate)