Internet routing from airplanes
News to me: you can use The Internet from planes now; I knew that this was in the works, but I didn’t think it had actually been implemented yet. Apparently Lufthansa (others?) has WiFi planes that communicate with the outside world via satellite links. As is thoroughly explained in this post, the plane connects to a geostationary satellite and has it’s own /24 network. The planes intelligently decide which satellite to use based upon which will produce shorter routing at the ground station and are able to dynamically change this throughout the flight. As the Renesys blogger shows, the planes announce their route changes thus allowing graceful switches amongst the satellites. Cool.
This presentation explains the system that Boeing developed.
Lufthansa is currently the only airline that provides in-flight WiFi, I think they started offering it about a year ago. The pricing scheme seems a little pricey - $27 per flight? wtf. The system they developed is quite clever, nevertheless. I bet the next airline to start providing WiFi is EOS Airlines..
–Mark
Comment by Mark Tran — May 1, 2006 @ 2:41 am
I have a question. I think that is very interesting the system that Boeing developed but I cant understand a question. If a plane is connected with the AS1 when the plane change to AS3, I think the connexion BGP is lost, because BGP is over TCP and the connexion TCP I think that is lost. Is it true? I cant understand how it works this service. Thanks
Comment by Alicia — November 18, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
As I understand it, all of the plane’s connections are indeed dropped when the route switchover occurs. As the plane crosses the midpoint between the two satellite links, the BGP session is brought down, withdrawn by the routers on the origin side and then brought up and advertised on the destination side.
Comment by Administrator — November 18, 2007 @ 3:20 pm
Can you explain me the process at level BGP? Because in the paper about Conexion By Boeing they dont tell that the connection is lost. I need to understand the process at level BGP. Can you help me? Thanks
Comment by Alicia — November 18, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
I don’t believe that Connexion terminates outstanding connections, rather, drops any open sessions and stops announcing routes from the route which is being terminated.
Comment by Administrator — November 18, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Then, if you are visiting a website when the aircraft connect to another ground station the oustanding connection drops. Is it true? Thanks
Comment by Alicia — November 18, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Yes, any active connections will be dropped and must be re-negotiated. If you were casually browsing the web (and actually reading the pages), you might not even notice, since the interruption is so short.
Comment by Drew Stephens — November 18, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
I have another question, If I have established a ssh connection with a website, when the plane changes to another ground station.. what happens with this connection?
Thanks
Comment by Alicia — November 19, 2007 @ 3:12 pm