This week Quantas have announced free in-flight Wi-Fi services on all domestic trips and are even offering free Netflix and Spotify on their flights. In-flight Wi-Fi is becoming more and more popular, proving the power of connection and the necessity of Wi-Fi access. Even at 35,000 feet connection is essential & in this blog post we want to find out exactly how in-flight Wi-Fi works.

The first way that signal can reach you is through ground-based broadband towers. Effectively this method allows your device to hop from tower to tower as it travels over them. Signal is sent to the aircraft’s antennas and voila! However, this is far from foolproof and problems can occur when passing over large volumes of water where no mobile broadband towers exist. Obviously whilst flying this happens a lot. Luckily though, there is another way for signal to reach your device.

The second way is considered more effective and involves satellite technology. Far, far away in geostationary orbit sit satellites that send and receive information. They bounce signal from satellites to Earth and back again. The aircraft’s antenna then connects to these satellites and connects the aircraft to the closest signal that it can find. An on-board router then manipulates the signal and ensures that passengers receive Wi-Fi signal on their devices.

So there you have it – the mystery of in-flight Wi-Fi solved!

Staying connected is more important than ever and we are always looking to work with businesses to create effective solutions to Wi-Fi problems.