In-flight WiFi Annual Pass: Do you have to pay or lose contact? I'll do the math for you
In China, online games have become more colorful.
In just six months, following the previous cash payment model, Geely launched a new product called "Season Card"; China Eastern Airlines sells Wi-Fi coupons on self-service kiosks together with discounts for its own VIP rooms, and also provides services such as "Half-Year Pass" and "Annual Pass".
In addition, Ctrip is also paying for in-flight WiFi as a membership benefit and leading other third-party purchases to customize the benefits.
The diversification of game methods is a breakthrough in technology and policy, coupled with the gradual recovery of air passenger transportation by airlines, so that more domestic passengers choose wireless Internet access.
According to Airways Internet Technology, more than 35% of the wireless Internet charges for the international routes it serves have reached more than 35%.
At present, China Eastern Airlines, Air China, China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Jixiang, Xiamen Airlines and other airlines have deployed wireless Internet access services on board. At present, only a few airlines, such as Sichuan Airlines, are involved in narrow-body airliners.
This is due to the fact that large passenger jets carry a large number of passengers and are often used for relatively expensive domestic commercial flights, i.e. international flights, where passengers are more inclined to purchase wifi on the plane.
From the perspective of airline models, narrow-body models are still the mainstream models, while there is still a big gap between China's wireless Internet penetration rate and developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan.
The success of the payment method proves that airlines are useful for both passengers and airlines, and the next step is to provide more services to passengers so that WiFi on board can be more popular. ”
From slow to fast. On February 1, 2013, a passenger on a plane from Beijing to Xi'an accessed the Internet via a tablet and laptop, which was also the first flight test of an airline to conduct air-ground connectivity.
Previously, only Chinese airlines equipped the cabins of their planes with closed WiFi, or "Wi-Fi".
The flight, which took more than two hours in total, included an hour and ten minutes of networking.
It was better than expected. "The engineers who participated in the test said that real-time meetings, WeChat chats, microblogging, sending and receiving letters, playing games, paying and other programs ran smoothly, and the bandwidth of the upper and lower ends (the data capacity that a communication line can transmit) exceeded 12 m (megabytes).
Just when all airlines were in the trial stage, China Eastern Airlines said on June 1, 2015 that it had obtained the approval of the state to implement "in-flight Internet access" for passengers.
In the previous test flight of China Eastern Airlines, the wireless network on the aircraft could reach a maximum of 32 meters.
Judging from the reviews of various airlines, the network speed is "not bad", and it seems that the day of aviation Internet is close at hand.
However, as passengers actually experience it, all sorts of questions begin to arise that the Internet is not as "beautiful" as they think.
The first problem was the inconvenience, at that time mobile phones could only be connected to tablets, and they had to be activated at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters to access the Internet.
Another problem is that the internet speed is too poor, and tourists are curious to put their laptops and Wi-Fi online, only to find that the internet speed is unstable, and it takes a long time to turn the page. This greatly affected the enthusiasm of later passengers.
Why is it slow and unstable when I'm on the web? This starts with the technical routes chosen by each airline.
The first is ATG (Air to Earth), which links the equipment on the aircraft to the base on the ground. Hainan Airlines adopted this scheme for test flights.
It has the characteristics of high bandwidth, short delay, low cost, easy installation and maintenance. However, the disadvantage is that the ATG can only cover the base station on the ground, and it is difficult to cover the ocean, polar regions, mountains, deserts and other regions, and the flight altitude is too high, and the signal will also be interfered with.
The second way is to connect the device on the aircraft to the satellite, which can also be divided into L-band, K-band and K-band according to the frequency of transmission. Among these people, China Eastern has selected an artificial satellite in the Ku-band.
Satellite communications have the advantage of large coverage and global air transport. But its downside is that it is expensive to retrofit, and it has very little bandwidth and limited network speeds.
Because there were no high-density satellites at the beginning, the current satellite network, at most, is used to read words and **, although it seems to be okay, but in reality it is very unstable.
Historically, the development of wireless networks in aircraft has been constrained by hardware.
As of July 7, 2020, the access speed of China's vehicle wireless network has finally exceeded 100 m (megabytes), officially opening a new era of "high-speed" networks and realizing continuous support for the world.
On the same day, Qingdao Airlines flight QW9771 carried China's first high-orbit, high-density, 20 g (gigabytes) ultra-high-orbit high-density satellite "Zhongxing 16", and achieved "space synchronization" of the satellite in 2017.
In July of the same year, China successfully launched a synchronous synchronous high-throughput broadband communications satellite with a bandwidth of 50 gigabytes (gigabytes) and the Asia-Pacific six-dimensional satellite.
On August 20, 2010, China Eastern Airlines' MU5101 from Shanghai to Beijing used the satellite to reach speeds that are just like being at home on the Internet, with a maximum speed of 220 m (megabytes).
At the end of 2020, China Telecom Group, China Eastern Airlines Group, and JuneYao Group jointly established a company called "Aerospace Communication".
Zhang Chi said that during this period, domestic wireless networks have moved from 2 G, 3 G to 4 G. Passenger enthusiasm has been greatly increased by the improvement of air services.
From wired to seamless.
As network speeds increase, so does the ease of network access.
On January 16, 2017, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) officially promulgated the Guidelines for the Evaluation of the Use of Portable Electronic Devices (PED) on In-Flight.
According to the guidelines, in just a few days, major airlines have announced that mobile devices can be carried, such as mobile**, which can be carried on board the aircraft.
That is, when boarding the plane, he can no longer turn off the **.
Previously, Wi-Fi access was only available on tablets or laptops, but not many passengers carried such devices, and almost everyone had a mobile**.
With the popularity of mobile **, more and more people can use wireless networks, and the development of China's wireless networks also has the possibility of success.
However, before that, there were still two major challenges: one was the stability and speed of the Internet, and the other was that the plane would reach 3,000 meters before turning on the network signal.
The first problem has been broken through after 2020, and the second problem has improved in 2023.
At the beginning of 2022, with the joint efforts of relevant parties, China will test the satellite device on the ground below 3,000 meters.
China Eastern Airlines launched its first "all-journey**" route in August this year, followed by Geely.
The two airlines have been separately in"Departure - landing"The phase carried out test flights of the air-ground connection service, as well as the hardware "upgrade" of the ground-air connection aircraft.
From an industry perspective, the system has made a breakthrough.
Within 15 minutes of take-off and landing, Wi-Fi is prohibited on board. In other words, there is a chasm between terrestrial Internet and wireless Internet, and it is impossible to achieve "full **".
There is always a kind of 'loss of contact' between humans and flying machines, and it becomes an island. Two network failures have greatly reduced the value of wireless networks.
For example, when a businessman needs to have a video meeting, he will miss some key things because of insufficient signals.
In addition, as far as the general public is concerned, during the take-off and landing of the aircraft, the requirements for contacting the outside world, reporting safety, inquiring about the destination, and picking up the plane are more urgent.
In the middle of the flight, especially for short flights, the wifi can only be turned on for more than an hour, and most people are eating or sleeping, so the requirements for wifi are not very high.
It's a huge shift in spirit. The question used to be whether to go online, but now it's whether to go online. It also increases travelers' desire for the internet.
The data shows that after the cancellation of the 3000-meter range, the use of wifi on Chinese aircraft has increased significantly.
From ceremonies to daily.
By searching the wireless network provided by China Airlines, it can be found that in recent years, domestic passengers have more positive comments on the wireless network provided by China Airlines: "The use is very good", "WeChat chat, brush short ** is no problem", "relatively low, but faster", "10 hours for international flights, high-speed Internet access is more than 200 yuan per time, I will definitely buy" ......
One of the most common words is "**."
The common perception is that paying cash will reduce the use of Wi-Fi in the car. So, in the beginning, domestic airlines will use WiFi for free on the plane, hoping to make up for the loss through advertising and e-commerce.
In reality, however, the benefits of wireless Internet access and e-commerce are limited. Airlines, for the sake of cost, will more or less exercise some control over traffic.
It's like after unlocking the phone, major airlines will impose certain restrictions on the network. Another example is the Chinese airline, which is still using the toll-free model, and its wireless network does not yet offer video recording.
However, since December 2018, when China Eastern Airlines first tried to use Wi-Fi to pay for regular cabin services, passengers have found that because there are no ads, the network speed can be guaranteed, and passengers' enthusiasm for online access has increased, especially when the Wi-Fi on the plane is connected to the 4G network.
Zhang Yu believes that office and first-class tools are a necessity for business travelers, and they are really valuable, and they are willing to pay and do not want to be disturbed by advertising.
Nowadays, many airlines have started to use Wi-Fi payment methods, and the variety is constantly increasing.
For example, ordinary broadband, high-speed products, as well as hourly payment, one-time experience payment, season card, annual card, semi-annual card, and so on. At the same time, their marketing platform has also expanded from the airline's official website to third-party companies such as Air Travel and Ctrip.
In terms of fares, taking the standard bandwidth of ordinary classes as an example, China Eastern Airlines, Juneyao Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, domestic routes and Japan-South Korea routes all have one-way fares of about 50 yuan.
Long-distance international flights vary greatly, with China Eastern Airlines and Juneyao Airlines each at 150 yuan, and China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines at 199 yuan.
For regular customers, you can choose from items such as season passes and annual passes. For example, the annual pass of China Eastern Airlines' domestic routes is 286 yuan for domestic routes, 586 yuan for international and domestic routes, and only 4 flights for long-distance international routes can "return to the cost".
However, at a time when Chinese airlines are constantly improving their in-flight wireless Internet access fee system, foreign airlines are also emerging in a new direction of development.
Beginning in February, Delta will offer free Wi-Fi on 80 percent of its U.S. domestic routes, and will continue to expand its free Wi-Fi service. This makes Delta Air Lines the first major U.S. airline to consider wireless Internet service as its primary subscriber service.
Starting in July next year, Singapore Airlines, which has always been known for its high-quality service, will also launch an unlimited, unrestricted internet network for ordinary and ultra-economic passengers.
Some attempts by foreign airlines have set a good example so that the air network is no longer just a formality, but should also be a way to enter the lives of passengers, and become a habit. Zhang Chi told reporters.
However, industry insiders have also noticed that the two foreign airlines do not provide free Internet access services equally. For example, all flights require passengers to be registered as frequent flyers of the airline. "It's ostensibly free, but it actually creates more value for airlines. ”
In addition, Singapore Airlines' Wi-Fi function does not have a video recording function, and passengers will still have to pay for the video or video interview.
Li Hanming, a big data analyst in civil aviation, said that overseas airlines are much faster than Chinese airlines in terms of wifi deployment, and they have always adopted a charging method, so the cost of equipment upgrades is borne by them. As a result, foreign airlines can make many innovations for wireless Internet access on board.
At present, airlines are actively developing more software and products to fully exploit the role of wireless networks and share the cost of network upgrades.
"There is also a rule of wifi on airplanes, that is, we have to find a user who can bring us 80% of the revenue, so that we can make our games more and so that our users can experience more fun," said Lee. ”
There is a ** company that proposes to use the company's method to provide customers with WiFi coupons, so that they can use VPN to connect to the company's intranet on the plane.
In addition to passengers, we can provide more services to the cockpit and crew, and more services to airlines.
Nowadays, the flight data provided by airlines is carried out before the plane takes off, and the pilot can only make decisions based on his own experience. In the future, civil airlines can develop an app similar to AutoNavi Maps through wireless networks, so that pilots can better plan routes.
In addition, thanks to the in-flight Wi-Fi access, pilots can keep track of the weather conditions on other flights, so they can better avoid dangerous weather.
For passengers, China Eastern Airlines and Fudan Huashan Hospital have launched a business called "** Remote Consultation" to help passengers respond in a timely manner in case of emergency. At the same time, this is also a question worth asuring.
Given the attractive conditions of wireless network access, will you opt for a fee?