Quote:
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Originally Posted by TadW
But what if every laptop user on board was downloading large files at the same time, or what if some geek was implementing a P2P node? Can Boeing promise me a certain bandwidth? I would be rather annoyed if I didn't receive the promised broadband after paying $29.95!
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Good question. This is what Boeing
officially says:
How many people can Connexion by Boeing serve simultaneously?
Depending on airline preference, Connexion by Boeing is capable of providing service to every passenger simultaneously through either a stand ethernet Connexion or wireless connectivity.
Well, that doesn't really answer your question. After digging some more, I found this interesting
answer on Lufthansa's homepage:
How fast is the data transfer?
Each aircraft boasts a transfer rate of 5 Mbps in the airplane and approximately 1 Mbps outside of the airplane. This bandwidth is shared among the users on board and, as with any other Internet Hotspot on the ground, the bandwidth per user depends on the number of users sharing and the applications used. Tests carried out last year showed that during average Internet usage, passengers should experience close to DSL speed.
In other words, next time I should book a flight
outside of the airplane to receive my dedicated 1 Mbps
Ok ok,they probably mean
upstream bandwidth is limited to 1 Mbps, while
downstream bandwidth is 5 Mbps. This is not all the bandwidth Connexion
could offer though. Transmission speeds can be as fast as 20 Mbps; however, currently only one-quarter of the bandwidth is given over to passenger data needs, with another quarter devoted to carriage of television broadcasts (yet to come), a quarter for airline use and the final quarter as a buffer to provide extra bandwidth to the other applications when needed.
So to answer your question, I think there could be a problem if too many passengers are using the service at once, or if there is some bandwidth hog who cannot live without P2P even just for a couple of hours.
