Wait, how is a flat rate internet service using WiFi worse than allowing airlines to implement some sort of LTE antenna booster on every plane so I have the opportunity to have no idea what I'm about to pay to use my phone?
"Americans are feeling pretty smug after winning the right to use portable electronics on airplanes during takeoff and landing. In fact, we even beat Europe to the new rules by several weeks."
WTF? That's how you start an article? I haven't seen anyone feeling smug at all about this ruling. Talk about trying to manufacture an issue!
I would be perfectly happy with in-flight phone calls being expressly prohibited without any technical justification. Can you imagine being forced to spend 6 or more hours next to someone with a bad case of glossolalia?
I have a feeling that enough people agree with you on this that regardless of the legal / regulatory situation, a social framework is going to emerge that pretty strongly discourages talking on the phone on a plane.
Even today, if you talk for too long or too loudly on an Amtrak train or a public bus, you'll get some pretty strong death stares from other passengers. Many will come right out and tell you to shut up.
If the rules fail us, peer pressure will step up :)
I'm not really sure how 3G/LTE is better than WiFi, at least in technology terms.
I've had WiFi on one flight in Europe (London to Oslo with Norwegian Airlines), it was free to use for everyone on the flight. It was very slow and unreliable though, and I spent half of the hour long flight just trying to get things to load, unsure if certain ports/sites were blocked or if it was just being slow.
That said, this problem is presumably from the connection between the WiFi access point on the plane and the satellites. I don't really see how using a 3G/LTE on the plane will be any better, if it's still relying on the (presumably small, low powered) equipment on the plane and a satellite connection.
So I'm not convinced that this is an improvement over in flight WiFi, besides a way for carriers to extract more roaming data charges from us. That said, we've also got better laws over roaming data charges within Europe coming in over the next few years too.
Nice-London flight here, it was slow and unreliable too. Instant messaging worked reasonably better than checking websites, but upload speed was rather slow (1 min to share a picture in WhatsApp).
Still, it's an amazing service for free, the one you expect to pay extra for.
It's an improvement in one way: It creates a strong incentive for various companies (or the airlines themselves) to offer deals to the airlines to install suitable equipment in order to get the roaming fees from the passengers cellphone operators.
Wifi on flights uses less battery, is likely faster, is a better fit for the small environments of flights, and because it bypasses the carrier routing (and business politics) should be faster and possibly more secure.
What would be fun is if planes formed their own 'Iridium' style network, communicating with the planes in front and behind them on their flight corridor, with airports as base stations. Only data need be carried (no voice) as who really wants people yapping away on a plane?
The transmitter on the plane would need to assume a plane roughly 100 miles or so in front, it would be roughly pointing in the right direction so the inverse square would apply to that, rather than the deal with the satellite where the 'bird' is 20000 or so miles away, at some angle above the equator, that has to be pointed at with some complicated servo arrangement. The TTL should be improved with an ad-hoc above the clouds network too.
What a horrendous article.