Your phone needs to have an IP allocated in order to receive anything, even UDP.
It can get it only via
I guess they want you to switch on the device on the ground and get the IP. But doesn’t the IP get de-allocated if the protocol is broken for a certain time?
If they were using SMS, that is a whole different matter. That needs the briefest of connections. But the amount of data is very limited, and is likely to be too expensive for images.
My current phone (Google Nexus 6) is quite usable in flight. Especially when there is an LTE network in reach, it works sufficiently well to do mails and weather briefings. No matter if FL050 or FL200. This time I flew with the Nexus 6 and Nexus 5 in parallel and I got much better results with the Nexus 6. It’s really getting there, didn’t have to turn on my Thuraya sat phone at all. Obviously over the sea and desert there was no connection.
On pretty much all of my flights I do emails/WhatsApp etc. quite reliably.
Wow! I was already wondering if you sent me those air-to-air messages via Satphone (I sent mine via the ADL120)
My current phone (Google Nexus 6) is quite usable in flight. Especially when there is an LTE network in reach, it works sufficiently well to do mails and weather briefings. No matter if FL050 or FL200. This time I flew with the Nexus 6 and Nexus 5 in parallel and I got much better results with the Nexus 6. It’s really getting there, didn’t have to turn on my Thuraya sat phone at all. Obviously over the sea and desert there was no connection.
On pretty much all of my flights I do emails/WhatsApp etc. quite reliably.
How can that work?
In mountainous terrain it’s possible, due to the different GSM tower config.
I think expectations of glider pilots are less than that of airplane pilots which get quite bored during their long flights and want to surf on Internet like if at home 
The limited scope and principle of operation is explained on TopMetSat EU’s web site, quoted in the first post:
The strength of the app lies in fully loading fresh images – including when the internet connection is very poor or even interrupted. It is even possible to start the request at great heights, i.e. offline. An acoustic signal notifies the user when the download is completed – even if the display is switched off.
The satellite images are specially compressed for these conditions. In our experience, up-to-date images are possible several times an hour. Quote
They say ….great heights, i.e. offline… so they accept the fact that there is no service at, say, FL200.
Basically, their objective seems to make the best of a very lousy and intermittent GSM connection.
If you read between the lines, it can take one hour to obtain one single compressed image: In our experience, up-to-date images are possible several times an hour.
The real solution would be a real direct broadcast satellite for Europe, similar to Sirius and XM in the U.S.
How much would it cost to rent one high power Ku or Ka band transponder on satellites like SES/Astra, Inmarsat or Eutelsat ?
How good would the connection then be ? Would it allow a good downlink like Sirius or XM, with a small omnidirectional antenna ?
If it would allow a decent business, why not start-up our company and set up a service for Europe ?
Nestor wrote:
How much would it cost to rent one high power Ku or Ka band transponder on satellites like SES/Astra, Inmarsat or Eutelsat ?
@tomjnx
Thanks for your figure. This $3m per year would be the cost of renting one single high power broadcast (downlink) transponder. It’s consistent with the figure/estimation I found here of $2m p.a. for a less capable VSAT transponder.
With 3,000 subscribers and a 50% overall margin, it could translate in $2,000 per year price per subscriber, just for the datalink.
With 6,000 subscribers….
Since they acquired Solaris last year, Echostar seems to be preparing a service in S-band which could do the job:
EchoStar buys struggling MSS operator Solaris Mobile
EchoStar Mobile Technology Infrastructure
Eutelsat 10A and EchoStar XXI satellites
…
Digital Satellite radio for Europe
EchoStar Mobile offers the perfect solution for the wide scale adoption of digital radio across Europe using its unique hybrid S-Band network to optimise network design and limit cost for the provision of digital radio to cars, personal handsets and fixed installations. The time is right for the EU wide adoption and migration to digital radio and the switch off of analogue. In the same way that there has been a transition from analogue TV to digital TV and for similar reasons and benefits, Europe is preparing for digital radio and the automotive industry is keen to embed new digital radio systems into their car designs. EchoStar Mobile’s hybrid network will be ideally placed to support a Pan-European digital radio platform enabling car manufacturers and service providers to reach out to a European wide customer base using a single technology and harmonised S-band spectrum.
….
Easy Integration
Operating in S-Band has many advantages already used by existing mobile network operators such as small antenna and small form factor handsets, good indoor penetration, good atmospheric propagation, good performance at high speed, low power transmission and low noise floor in relatively interference free and unencumbered spectrum. In addition, S- Band enables very wide area coverage from satellite creating a hybrid network topology and 15MHz + 15MHz of harmonised availability across the 28 EU member states. The 2 GHz S-Band frequency spectrum sits alongside the UMTS standard already used across Europe for 3G terrestrial services. EchoStar Mobile can therefore complement existing mobile infrastructures and handsets, delivering new services and wide coverage cost-effectively.
The real solution would be a real direct broadcast satellite for Europe
I did that calculation several times. You need very roughly 30.000 paying subscribers to start a satellite weather broadcast business. That business plan simply does not work out. In fast with my existing network of ADL devices I could buy broadcast capacity from Iridium but it turns out to be much more expensive than to pay simply for each download.
This new service, TopMetSat EU, is intended for gliders first.
Bernd and Jon who run Topmeteo have been thinking about such a service for a long time. We also fitted an ADL120 in one of their gliders for testing purposes. It worked well but we concluded that the glider pilots will not be willing to pay a satellite based service. So their current solution tries to make the best of a partial GSM/3G/LTE coverage. This is ok for gliders as the weather information is apparently not very time critical. They just want a satellite image after a few hours of flight to see in which direction they should continue. If this images comes in 15 minutes late it does not matter much. In a powered aircraft when downloading up to date radar images continuously that approach does not work out the same way.
Thanks @Sebastian for sharing your insider expert thoughts.
From GAMA’s 2014 report , one could estimate the European general aviation fleet “in need of in-flight real-time weather service” to approx. 48,000, excluding ultralights and smaller VFR aircrafts.
I’m dreaming, but….
The service could also target broader audience such as yachting (including harbour information), mountaineering, or maybe high-end cars (including traffic information), with, say, a market of another 100,000 subscribers, bringing the total market to approx. 150,000.
Based on $3m per year for renting one satellite transponder, an overall margin of 50%, and an accessible market of 30% of the above total, one could aim at a selling price (data transfer only) of approx. $100-150 per subscriber.
Price could be cheaper for simpler usage (cars, boats, pedestrians) and more expensive for aircraft, more complex, use.
Maybe the satellite operator, Echostar or a competitor, could agree to work in a “risk and profit sharing” mode with such a venture, in order to help launch their new S-band hybrid service.
Can anyone have a look at the eWAS app by GTD ?
Downloadable from the app store….
