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Satellite phones becoming pointless for getting weather in GA?

I have not used the Thuraya XT phone for a year or two, because I have always managed to get a connection on the phone.

Briefly, but that’s all you need for tafs and metars using a compact private site. It works thus mainly due to 4G which connects a lot faster. 3G remains poor.

But one still cannot get any connectivity in some places. For example I never get a single byte all over Belgium (Vodafone contract).

Also most pilots don’t have access to the efficient private sites…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Over the next couple of years, two things are likely to change: 4G LTE air-to-ground is being rolled out in many places – particularly Germany – It works really really well, and more and more work is being done on Low orbit satellite broadband.

Both of these will revolutionise the market. Rather than worrying about low bandwidth high latency connections which cost crazy money, you will be able to connect directly to the real internet.

I’m sure somebody will find a way to skew the business model and make it horribly expensive (roaming charges…) but I think there will start to be real competition, and real uses outside of aviation which will drive the prices down.

EGEO

Peter wrote:

Also most pilots don’t have access to the efficient private sites…

Autorouters telegram app works fine for me.

pmh
ekbr ekbi, Denmark

Iridium is also currently launching the next gen satellites that have higher data speeds. Not sure what the future holds but it will be better for pilots in Europe and data.

EGTK Oxford

4G LTE air-to-ground is being rolled out in many places – particularly Germany

I fear GA will not profit much as this will not be normal LTE which connects to handheld devices but you will need quite a bit of hardware on the plane and I feel the cost will be enormous for light GA:
http://europeanaviationnetwork.com/how-it-works

Low orbit satellite broadband

This might be interesting for GA but I fear the antennas will not work out well. The SpaceX solution for example is supposed to have an antenna the size of a pizza takeout box. I see no way to operate such an antenne in most aircraft.

Iridium NEXT might get interesting but this is not going to be low cost.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Peter

At what sort of altitude are you able to pick up a 4G signal?

Autorouters telegram app works fine for me.

I use it too but it relies on the app (telegram in this case) to retry the connection periodically. This is not done aggressively i.e. the app is not notified there is a signal present. So I find that sometimes for hours nothing comes through, because there is a “recovery time” of some sort which can be minutes i.e. multiple requests all arrive when I am landing. This is especially if one has sent in a request for a radar or IR image. There are obvious solutions but most would require a rooted phone.

Iridium NEXT might get interesting but this is not going to be low cost.

Obviously, nobody is going to bomb the market, in this or any other area

Thuraya is still the cheapest satphone option but it is at best 90% reliable. I reckon every commercial user has tried Thuraya and decided they are a joke, and gone back to Iridium and its crappy slow but reliable connection.

At what sort of altitude are you able to pick up a 4G signal?

Up to the max – FL210

It depends mainly on whether you are over the Alps or not. In there, there are towers which give you a good 4G signal. Over flat land it is much more sporadic. Typically one can fly for an hour and get nothing. Over Belgium this is assured but is fairly common over France.

It could also be a function of which cellular network SIM you have. I have Vodafone contract as I consistently find them to be the best network for performance and with the least useless customer service. They are the most pricey – basically everybody in the UK is trying to undercut Voda, starting with using ever cheaper call centres in India etc – but only by a small margin. But each cellular network with roam only with certain other networks when you are abroad.

As I said before, 4G has transformed the availability of data at altitude – seemingly because the connection is established so much faster (maybe 10x) than 3G.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter, are you sure that what SIM/mobile operator you have plays a role in what data connection you get when abroad?
When abroad don’t you roam on all available mobile networks?
4G coverage abroad then becomes a function of the number of 4G base stations, which 4G frequency bands that are used in the country and which of those 4G frequency bands your phone supports. (I guess that a new phone bought in Europe in reality supports the relevant frequency bands.)

List of LTE Networks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks_in_Europe

Graphical view of frequency allocation – but it does not distinguish between 2G/3G/4G
http://www.spectrummonitoring.com/frequencies/

ESTL

Anders wrote:

Peter, are you sure that what SIM/mobile operator you have plays a role in what data connection you get when abroad?
When abroad don’t you roam on all available mobile networks?

This used to be the case, but mostly not any more. I’m with Vodafone Hungary and in those countries where Vodafone has a partner network (and offered free roaming even before the upcoming EU deadline), the phone won’t connect to other networks. I’m not sure about the technicalities behind this.

Hajdúszoboszló LHHO

Interesting…

What I do know is that if I am abroad and select Manual Network Selection instead of Automatic, I see a number of networks presented (all native to that country obviously) but the phone won’t connect to most of them.

This may have a bearing on my original post in that if say one is flying over Germany and Vodafone UK have a roaming deal with Vodafone Germany and nobody else in Germany, and it just so happens that Voda Germany don’t have a lot of towers (e.g. they are not a major player in Germany – like Orange etc always were a minor player in the UK) then the result might be poor connectivity.

France is definitely worse than Germany, IME. Belgium is nonexistent.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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