Fleet tracking, pilot messaging

Airtext Firmware: 03222317
LT/LT+ Firmware:  07202110

The stories are many, here is a recent one.  A friend that fly’s a one year old G-280 was airborne last month and the aircraft owner was not happy with the internet speed from their pricey new technology. The WiFi manufacturer we will call “GG”.  A phone call to “GG” while airborne was made to understand the poor connectivity.  

 

The technician from “GG” called back and said, “You have 11 devices connected to our service.”  “Really?”, was the response from the pilot.  “There are only 2 pilots and 2 passengers on board. “ So they started to count up the devices and sure enough 11 devices with WiFi turned on.  This airplane had on-board iPad’s for the pilots, each pilot had their personal iPhone and iPad (6 devices so far) and both passengers had their own iPad and IPhones and one passenger had a second iPhone (that is 5 more devices).  

 

Yes indeed, 11 devices on WiFi causing the “GG” not to function very well.  In addition, as they were told, dependent upon where in the US they were flying, bandwidth was being used by airlines and doled out proportionally to airplanes.  

 

The WiFi Gotcha is that devices with Wifi try to update their apps and continue to ping the internet while you are on the airplane.  Who is going to turn this off, or be responsible to ask everyone to disable this on their phone when they get on the airplane?

 

Airtext uses BlueTooth technology.  The fees for using Airtext are low because we charge per usage not hourly.  Airtext does not play Gotcha with capability because the burst messaging service we use is as good as if not better than the text messaging speeds you see on the ground.  For more information on Airtext, please see www.Airtext.aero or call us at 678-208-3087.