Typically one can fly for an hour and get nothing.
I think for most pilot this is too much delay combined with the insecurity you will eventually get a weather update.
But if you are looking for an Internet based solution which works with minimal bandwidth you can try my ADLConnect app. All you need is an account from German weather service for about 80 Euros per year and you will get the weather displayed on a moving map etc. So far I offer the app for free.
Finally if you think 3G/4G is not enough you can upgrade to one of the Iridium ADL140/ADL150 satellite devices but already the app alone is much more efficient than any typical website solution.
I have the ADL120, installed and connected to Navcom 1, which means that the FPL from the #1 navigator is displayed in the ADL app. I really like that setup, and it has already helped me 5 or 6 times to circumnavigate areas with strong precipitation in IMC and storms. I find it more helpful than the Stormscope.
However, the ADL120 is a satphone product, not a cellular product…..
if you are looking for an Internet based solution which works with minimal bandwidth you can try my ADLConnect app. All you need is an account from German weather service for about 80 Euros per year and you will get the weather displayed on a moving map etc. So far I offer the app for free.
That’s very interesting that the ADLConnect app works with any internet connection. Presumably it calls the ADL wx data server?
When I put the TC in for avionics upgrade, I was initially going to install a Globalstar system in the plane. It was a great deal, only $1900 for the built in sat phone box. Even better, you just used an app on the iPhone and it connected via WiFi to the sat phone box in the plane and you could get internet, or talk at 25000ft! Sounded like a dream system, but then everyone I spoke to said to stay away from Globalstar. How they didn’t have coverage, bad service and cost a lot to use. So in the end, I decided against installing it. But the idea is great. Maybe down the line with some other manufacturer..
That’s very interesting that the ADLConnect app works with any internet connection. Presumably it calls the ADL wx data server?
Yes with a normal Internet connection the ADLConnect app call our server directly. But it still uses the full data compression we have in place for the satellite download. So you can get radar, infrared, strikes, winds, temperatures, METAR/TAF all in one extremely small download.
We use that feature for preflight briefings, to demo our product at shows etc. Only if you want the same weather data outside Internet coverage you will need one of the ADL140/ADL150 satellite devices.
Like Peter I haven’t used my Thuraya in ages because my 4G phone together with autorouter’s Telegram bot works well enough.
It also heavily depends on the actual phone model. GSM phones broadcast in search for towers and analyze the returned signal to pick the strongest. Typically they are not built and tested to evaluate 500 responses and depending on the implementation can show very poor rates of success. I have found that my previous phone worked better than my current phone.
The ADL app is very useable with a 4G phone and thankfully free of charge. However, I never understood why even on a 400MBit LAN connection, it needs so much time to download the weather. Technically there should be no reason for this to take longer than 1s including the processing of the data.
What’s the difference (protocol, frequency, modulation etc) between 4G and LTE? The only things I’ve found on the net to compare them says ‘LTE is 4G’, but clearly there must be some difference between LTE and 4G otherwise my phone wouldn’t sometimes show it has a 4G connection, and other times shows an LTE connection. Other sites says LTE stands for ‘Long term evolution’ but that’s not really helpful.
So far I’ve noticed LTE seems to quit working above about 2000 feet, 4G goes a bit higher, but that might just be the different terrain (4G at home, and it’ll be built to expect people on mountain tops, versus LTE when I’m in the US and in the flat lands).
I always thought 3G/4G = LTE = UMTS 
Do you get 4G or LTE showing up on the same phone? I have never seen LTE on my Samsung S6 or S7 which are “fully modern”. But then I have not been to the USA since 2008.
3G = UMTS
4G = LTE
While UMTS brought high throughput rates for data, latency was still terrible. 4G addressed the latency issue and increased the throughput. In my office, all I have is a 4G stick for all my internet needs. It has all the characteristics of a good DSL connection.
Most countries now have some level of 4G support although it varies greatly.
OK; I think Germany used the term UMTS whereas the UK called it 3G.
But German UMTS was about 10x faster than UK 3G. Of the order of 10mbits/sec versus 300kbits/sec down and under 100k up. 3G/HSPA UK is 3mbits/sec down and 300kbits/sec up.
In the context of this thread I found 3G rarely works airborne (except in the Alps), 3G/HSPA (sometimes displayed as 3G+) works a lot better because presumably stuff like the connection setup (DHCP etc) happen 10x faster. But 4G is by far the best, doing a few megabits at least whenever it works and with a sub- 1 second setup time.
Regarding the business of connecting to too many base stations at the same time, I see some evidence that this has been solved with a blacklist i.e. your phone becomes dysfunctional for many minutes even though there is a strong signal I have seen this frequently over France – a strong signal but no data flowing for half of France. A bit like Thuraya actually 
Somebody doing a custom app could do really well… but the market would be only rooted phones.
