dublinpilot wrote:
I recently came across some mobile phone signal booster adverts
1) In general I think there is too much focus on the antenna and reception when talking cellular service in flight. It is hard to get exact information but it seems plausible to me that the network operators often do not want airborne use of their networks as it disturbs many cells at once. I would not spend mone yon any signal boosters or similar. Back when developing the ADL200 I did monitor internal status messages of the chipset and it did see so many networks even from very far away but it did never manage to log on and load any data.
2) Besides reporting the altitude like “I got signal at x feet” also take into account the speed. In my experience the faster you go the more issues there are even at low altitudes.
3) I would not hope for much from SpaceX. They could easily solve all our problems but they seem to be good as taking as much money as they possibly can. Looking at their current offers they did identify aviation an area where they can charge more, a huge lot more, and they will do so, making their products uninteresting for us not owning a Gulfstream or similar.
it did see so many networks even from very far away but it did never manage to log on and load any data.
Exactly what I’ve been saying… there is a blacklist algorithm being operated. It would make perfect sense. But not everybody does it the same way. The French implementation is obvious.
Exactly what I’ve been saying… there is a blacklist algorithm being operated
I don’t know. The same thing happens when you drive down the French highways away from urban areas. There are vast regions where reception is showing as perfect with 4G/5G signal, but neither voice nor data are even remotely possible. Certainly not due to multiple towers in sight. I’ve always wondered why, but Hanlon’s razor would suggest it is not due to a desire to blacklist some GA folk 
It isn’t blacklisting GA 
It is blacklisting client devices (phones) which are connecting to multiple towers, which creates a lot of inter-tower handover messages.
How this works is well known (and I’ve read bits in various places over the years) although I doubt anyone who knows the details (I know there are several on EuroGA) is going to post them openly here. The industry does not want people to be hacking the system.
Different countries buy their GSM gear from different vendors. In Europe, Nokia and Ericsson have been major players, although Huawei have been in the headlines recently for good reasons to do with your military enemy having the ability to shut down everything remotely I would expect France to be sourcing GSM hardware in France.
Thanks all. A very interesting discussion.
The points that I’m picking up on are:
1. These devices, if they work at all, will only work on a very specific frequency. This might work fine at home where you know your provider and the frequency that you are connecting to from your home. But in a moving aircraft, crossing international borders, roaming on different networks, you’re likely to be boosting the wrong frequencies and not doing your connection any good.
2. Even if you do manage to boost the signal on the correct frequency, you may be making the situation worse, because now you are connecting to even more towers than previously and more likely to get ignored by the network.
To make it of any use, you’d have to do a lot of work on which frequencies you are actually boosting and which ones you want to, and you’d need some sort of directional antenna to minimise the number of towers you are seeing. Sound like a lot of work!
Peter wrote:
5G is likely to be vapourware in most of Europe.
I have 5G pretty much anywhere now (in France). Most of the time it’s not the 60GHz that is used to serve single buildings (in very dense areas, a big selling point of 5G), but it’s still 5G.
Even in a (very) remote house, I’ve been getting 5G for a few months now. There is no tap water there, but there is fiber and 5G (it’s 2km away from the closest water pipe and 7km from the – tiny – town center).
In France 5G is like fiber : massive government plans to increase remote availability which pay off quite quickly. Definitely not vaporware, although the benefits are hardly noticeable over 4G.
I’ll be testing if it actually improves connectivity in the air.
I have 5G pretty much anywhere now (in France)
Same here in CHE, 5G has become a standard… but yeah, ain’t Europe, is it?
Peter wrote:
It isn’t blacklisting GAIt is blacklisting client devices (phones) which are connecting to multiple towers, which creates a lot of inter-tower handover messages.
I interpreted your statement as such. It’s also what I meant. Again, the phenomenon you describe:
In France you see a strong signal (so the stuff about the ground antennae pointing only down is clearly not true there) but there is no connectivity, suggesting that France blacklists any SIM card seen connecting to multiple towers
is observable in relatively big parts of France outside populated areas, on the ground. I don’t think it is proof of anyone blacklisting anything. Drive down the road north-south and you will get exactly the same intermittent connectivity as you describe. I’m not saying there is no mitigation for phones connecting to multiple towers in place, but the strong signal – no connection observation doesn’t mean much in my experience. I’ve not seen similar things in eg Germany despite the typical driving speeds there making the multiple tower theory plausible again
Definitely not vaporware, although the benefits are hardly noticeable over 4G.
Apple actually suggests to use 4G as 5G drains the phone battery more and gives no or very little benefits.
aart wrote:
Apple actually suggests to use 4G as 5G drains the phone battery more and gives no or very little benefits.
The key word here being Apple
