How Europe is totally owning our in-flight electronics policy, again

Wait, how is a flat rate internet service using WiFi worse than allowing airlines to implement some sort of LTE antenna booster on every plane so I have the opportunity to have no idea what I'm about to pay to use my phone?

What a horrendous article.

I would be perfectly happy with in-flight phone calls being expressly prohibited without any technical justification. Can you imagine being forced to spend 6 or more hours next to someone with a bad case of glossolalia?

I'm not really sure how 3G/LTE is better than WiFi, at least in technology terms.

I've had WiFi on one flight in Europe (London to Oslo with Norwegian Airlines), it was free to use for everyone on the flight. It was very slow and unreliable though, and I spent half of the hour long flight just trying to get things to load, unsure if certain ports/sites were blocked or if it was just being slow.

That said, this problem is presumably from the connection between the WiFi access point on the plane and the satellites. I don't really see how using a 3G/LTE on the plane will be any better, if it's still relying on the (presumably small, low powered) equipment on the plane and a satellite connection.

So I'm not convinced that this is an improvement over in flight WiFi, besides a way for carriers to extract more roaming data charges from us. That said, we've also got better laws over roaming data charges within Europe coming in over the next few years too.

Wifi on flights uses less battery, is likely faster, is a better fit for the small environments of flights, and because it bypasses the carrier routing (and business politics) should be faster and possibly more secure.

Im perfectly okay with having wifi instead of 4g.

So I guess leet speak has evolved to such a place where traditional publications like the Washington Post are using it sincerely in their headlines.

What would be fun is if planes formed their own 'Iridium' style network, communicating with the planes in front and behind them on their flight corridor, with airports as base stations. Only data need be carried (no voice) as who really wants people yapping away on a plane? The transmitter on the plane would need to assume a plane roughly 100 miles or so in front, it would be roughly pointing in the right direction so the inverse square would apply to that, rather than the deal with the satellite where the 'bird' is 20000 or so miles away, at some angle above the equator, that has to be pointed at with some complicated servo arrangement. The TTL should be improved with an ad-hoc above the clouds network too.