On July 23rd, with the approval of the relevant state departments, the first commercial trial of space-ground Internet connection by the satellite broadband was successfully completed in the flight between Shanghai and Beijing, which was jointly carried out by China Telecom and China Eastern Airlines, this trial opened a prelude of the aerial Internet services to the civil aviation passengers, China Telecom and China Eastern Airlines will present an all-around aerial Internet services for the mass passengers.
This flight is an important milestone for the domestic civil aviation field, in the future, China Telecom will cooperate with more airlines and other partners, and provide better onboard communication service for the passengers.
In this flight, the aerial network connection is achieved by the satellite KU band transmission. This technology is dominant by the characteristics of high bandwidth, stable network speed, global coverage, etc, it is currently the most widely used and the most advanced way to realize aerial network access, the theoretical bandwidth can reach 50Mb/s, according to the trial during this flight, in the 10,000-meter high cabin, the maximum sharing bandwidth is 32Mb/s, which is enough to meet the needs of civil aviation passengers in Webpage browsing, sending and receiving e-mails, instant messaging, social interaction, the aerial network shopping and other basic Internet demands. At the same time, function such as space-ground video linking, aerial internet video watching is also available, which can meet the needs of aerial high-speed Internet access in a certain extent.
In the next stage, China Telecom and China Eastern Airlines will apply for space-ground Internet connection services trials on international airlines, realizing the global roaming of the network in the cabins. But we should note that, in accordance with the requirements of civil aviation regulations, in the present stage, mobile phones are still required to be powered off during the entire flights, passengers can only use the laptops, PAD, and get access to the internet through the WIFI in the cabins.