
Traceroute from a Norwegian Airlines airplane - watson
https://gist.github.com/watson/5442295
======
Zigurd
I can't excuse all the nodes in that traceroute, but the ones with a domain
"direcpceu" are Hughes Communication satellite ISP nodes. Their satellites are
geosynchronous, so, for two legs in each direction, those packets went a very
long way before reaching the ground and coming back to the plane.

~~~
pwelch
Thanks for that. I was wondering where the transition from air to land was.
Makes sense they route through Satellites. It makes it more interesting
because your packets are going from 39,000 feet to space then to land. Awesome

~~~
andyjenn
This is implemented over Ku-band by Row44...

<http://new.row44.com/faq/>

------
watson
I started this trace-route within 30 seconds after the seatbelt sign was
switched off (the wifi isn't enabled while taking off), so I imagine only a
few people would have had the time to connect to the wifi at this point.

But in general, the wifi on one of these flights is very useless. I was
hacking on a node.js project and used it to look up some ES5 related stuff on
StackOverflow. I tried to post it to gist.github.com while in the air but
wasn't even able to load the page (though google and SO loaded fine)

~~~
joezydeco
GoGo in-flight wireless in the USA is using a terrestrial network that
piggybacks on cell towers. I've had 1.5 Mbit with ~400 mSec ping times, which
is a lot more usable than the satellite systems.

~~~
toomuchtodo
GoGo uses their own equipment on ~400 AT&T towers across the US, networked
together using AT&T's MPLS network.

Disclaimer: I interviewed at Aircell at one point.

------
lucb1e
Next time you get the chance to ask astronauts something (in the Netherlands
we had that once with Andre Kuipers I think), ask them to do a traceroute from
space!

~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder if Chris Hadfield would be willing, he seems to be pretty engaged
with us on the ground: <http://twitter.com/cmdr_hadfield>

------
DigitalSea
Wow, look at those response times: impressive.

~~~
lflux
I've had a better experience from Norwegian planes than from some hotel WiFi
networks.

~~~
oldmanjoe
and me. The Wifi is amazing considering you are at 39,000 ft.

~~~
djthorpe
...and it's free. I'm super impressed with Norwegian Airlines.

------
mseebach
I wonder if it would be practical to install upwards facing antennas on cell
tower and then have a tracking dish on planes track these to cut out the
satellite when over (populated) ground. If a line-of-sight microwave link
could be established, it should be possible to have high-bandwidth low-latency
connectivity in the air.

What is the effective beamwidth of a microwave antenna that needs to maintain
a 50-100km link? Would the ground antennas need to be tracking as well?

~~~
jof
This is _exactly_ what Aircell does in the US. I'm not sure what spectra
they're using, but the bandwidth would likely be quite variable, as planes
with non-directional antennas will interact with one another over wide areas.
Weather could also play a part, depending on the frequency.

------
homeomorphic
A minor nitpick: I think the author means simply the airline known as
"Norwegian", formally "Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA". "Norwegian Airlines" makes
them sound like our main carrier, while they are in fact a (very popular and
vastly successful) low cost, point-to-point-only, no-frills one.

------
ShabbyDoo
Southwest apparently uses Row44 for in-flight WiFi. When it even works, it's
absurdly slow. So slow that I'd gladly take a dial-up modem experience
instead. On top of this, the company insists on slapping up a banner on the
top of every webpage. If I click the "go away" button, I have to wait 30
seconds for the page to re-load. [Yes, I'm sure GreaseMonkey, etc. could
rescue me] I fly on Southwest so often that I receive free WiFi, but I rarely
use it. Even logging in is a multi-minute ordeal. I can't see how Row44 can
generate enough revenue to justify its existence given the abysmal user
experience.

------
ck2
Well Google will probably peer someday with direcpceu.com (Hughes)

I think it's using a satellite network in orbit just like people with rural
internet?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PanAmSat>

------
themurph
I think Louis CK responded to this best:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4>

------
ubersync
Am I missing something? Why is this on first page of HN. Not downplaying, I
honestly don't know.

~~~
alan_cx
Same old reason. Members of HN voted up because they found it of interest.

Now, tell me, did you really honestly not know that? I bet you did ;)

~~~
judofyr
I think GP is really asking "Why do people find this interesting?"

~~~
pwelch
A better question is: "Who doesn't find tracing packets from 39,000 feet
interesting?" =)

