In just a few years, ubiquitous connectivity has moved from a vision statement to an assumed reality in much of the developed world. Leveraging this expectation, several airlines offer in-flight connectivity (IFC) among their extra amenities on commercial flights. At the end of 2015, 72 airlines had already installed or announced plans to install passenger connectivity systems on board, and the number of connected commercial aircraft is expected to grow 5x over the 2015-2025 period, to reach 62% of the global fleet. In 2017, there were over 56 airlines that offer WiFi as a service according to a popular frequent flyers’ website.
Since first appearing on the market in late 2004, IFC has
grown to become a key feature of flights for many passengers and
an important component of revenue for airlines. Passengers are
reported to consider IFC when making travel decisions. A Honeywell survey found that 85% of passengers used IFC in 2013-2014 and
66% of them selected flights based on IFC availability. According
to a recent survey from Inmarsat, 61% of passengers consider WiFi
more important than in-flight entertainment and 40% rank it as one
of the top-3 drivers for airline choice. A 2016 market report
from Euroconsult states that total revenue from passenger connectivity services are expected to grow from $700 million in 2015 to nearly $5.4 billion by 2025, a 23% compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) over the 10-year period. Beyond passenger connectivity
and airlines’ revenue, IFC technologies are being proposed as the
basis for future iterations of critical aviation infrastructure such as air-traffic management systems.
Our work focuses on characterizing the performance of deployed IFC systems, understanding the challenges and developing solutions to improve users’ experience with IFC.
We have developed a number of tools to crowdsource network measurements of consumer IFC technologies and improve user experiences when browsing in-flight.
James Newman, Robert H. Belson, Fabián E. Bustamante Scaling up your web experience, everywhere Workshop Proc. of the International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile), 2019. Abstract | BibTeX | Links:  @workshop{newman:scaleup,
title = {Scaling up your web experience, everywhere},
author = {James Newman and Robert H. Belson and Fabián E. Bustamante},
url = {http://aqualab.cs.northwestern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Newman-Scaleup.pdf},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-06},
booktitle = {Proc. of the International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile)},
journal = {Hotmobile},
abstract = {We present an approach to improve users’ web experience by dynamically reducing the complexity of websites rendered based on network conditions. Our approach is based on a simple insight – adjusting a browser window’s scale (i.e., zooming in/out), changes the number of objects placed abovethe-fold and thus hides the loading of objects pushed below the fold in the user scroll time. We design ScaleUp , a browser extension that tracks network conditions and dynamically adjusts browser scale appropriately to improve user web Quality of Experience (QoE) while preserving the design integrity of websites. Through control experiments, we demonstrate the impact of ScaleUp on a number of key QoE metrics over a random sample of 50 from the top 500 Alexa websites. We show that a simple adjustment in scale can result in an over 19% improvement on Above-The-Fold (ATF) time in the median case. While adjusting a scale factor can improve proxy metrics of QoE, it is unclear if that translates in an improved web experience for users. We summarize findings from a large, crowdsourced experiment with 1,000 users showing that, indeed, improvement to QoE metrics correlate with an enhanced user experience. We have released ScaleUp as a Chrome Extension that now counts with over 1,000 users worldwide, and report on some of the lessons learned from this deployment.},
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pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {workshop}
}
We present an approach to improve users’ web experience by dynamically reducing the complexity of websites rendered based on network conditions. Our approach is based on a simple insight – adjusting a browser window’s scale (i.e., zooming in/out), changes the number of objects placed abovethe-fold and thus hides the loading of objects pushed below the fold in the user scroll time. We design ScaleUp , a browser extension that tracks network conditions and dynamically adjusts browser scale appropriately to improve user web Quality of Experience (QoE) while preserving the design integrity of websites. Through control experiments, we demonstrate the impact of ScaleUp on a number of key QoE metrics over a random sample of 50 from the top 500 Alexa websites. We show that a simple adjustment in scale can result in an over 19% improvement on Above-The-Fold (ATF) time in the median case. While adjusting a scale factor can improve proxy metrics of QoE, it is unclear if that translates in an improved web experience for users. We summarize findings from a large, crowdsourced experiment with 1,000 users showing that, indeed, improvement to QoE metrics correlate with an enhanced user experience. We have released ScaleUp as a Chrome Extension that now counts with over 1,000 users worldwide, and report on some of the lessons learned from this deployment. |
John P. Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante, James Newman, Arash Molavi Khaki, Dave Choffnes Mile High WiFI: A First Look At In-Flight Internet Connectivity Conference The Web Conference (WWW), 2018. Abstract | BibTeX | Links: @conference{rula:mhwifi,
title = {Mile High WiFI: A First Look At In-Flight Internet Connectivity},
author = {John P. Rula and Fabián E. Bustamante and James Newman and Arash Molavi Khaki and Dave Choffnes},
url = {http://aqualab.cs.northwestern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/JRula-WWW18.pdf},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-04-03},
booktitle = {The Web Conference (WWW)},
journal = {Proc. of WWW},
abstract = {In-Flight Communication (IFC), which can be purchased on a growing number of commercial flights, is often received by consumers with both awe for its mere availability and harsh criticism for its poor performance. Indeed, IFC provides Internet connectivity in some of the most challenging conditions with aircraft traveling at speeds in excess of 500 mph at 30,000 feet above the ground. Yet, while existing services do provide basic Interneaccessibility, anecdotal reports rank their quality of service as, at best, poor.
In this paper, we present the first characterization of deployed IFC systems. Using over 45 flight-hours of measurements, we profile the performance of IFC across the two dominant access technologies -- direct air-to-ground communication (DA2GC) and mobile satellite service (MSS). We show that IFC QoS is in large part determined by the high latencies inherent to DA2GC and MSS, with RTTs averaging 200ms and 750ms, respectively, and that these high latencies directly impact the performance of common applications such as web browsing. While each IFC technology is based on well studied wireless communication technologies, our findings reveal that IFC links experience further degraded link performance than their technological antecedents. We find median loss rates of 7%, and nearly 40% loss at the 90th percentile for MSS, an order of magnitude larger than recent characterizations of residential satellite networks.
We extend our IFC study exploring the potential of the newly released HTTP/2 and QUIC protocols in an emulated IFC environmen, finding that QUIC is able to improve page load times by as much as 7.9 times. In addition, we find that HTTP/2's use of multiplexing multiple requests onto a single TCP connection performs up to 4.8x worse than HTTP/1.1 when faced with large numbers of objects. We use network emulation to explore proposed technological improvements to existing IFC systems finding that high link losses account for the largest factor of performance degradation, and that to improving link bandwidth does little to improve the quality of experience for applications such as web browsing.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {conference}
}
In-Flight Communication (IFC), which can be purchased on a growing number of commercial flights, is often received by consumers with both awe for its mere availability and harsh criticism for its poor performance. Indeed, IFC provides Internet connectivity in some of the most challenging conditions with aircraft traveling at speeds in excess of 500 mph at 30,000 feet above the ground. Yet, while existing services do provide basic Interneaccessibility, anecdotal reports rank their quality of service as, at best, poor.
In this paper, we present the first characterization of deployed IFC systems. Using over 45 flight-hours of measurements, we profile the performance of IFC across the two dominant access technologies -- direct air-to-ground communication (DA2GC) and mobile satellite service (MSS). We show that IFC QoS is in large part determined by the high latencies inherent to DA2GC and MSS, with RTTs averaging 200ms and 750ms, respectively, and that these high latencies directly impact the performance of common applications such as web browsing. While each IFC technology is based on well studied wireless communication technologies, our findings reveal that IFC links experience further degraded link performance than their technological antecedents. We find median loss rates of 7%, and nearly 40% loss at the 90th percentile for MSS, an order of magnitude larger than recent characterizations of residential satellite networks.
We extend our IFC study exploring the potential of the newly released HTTP/2 and QUIC protocols in an emulated IFC environmen, finding that QUIC is able to improve page load times by as much as 7.9 times. In addition, we find that HTTP/2's use of multiplexing multiple requests onto a single TCP connection performs up to 4.8x worse than HTTP/1.1 when faced with large numbers of objects. We use network emulation to explore proposed technological improvements to existing IFC systems finding that high link losses account for the largest factor of performance degradation, and that to improving link bandwidth does little to improve the quality of experience for applications such as web browsing. |
John Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante, David R. Choffnes When IPs Fly: A Case for Redefining Airline Communication Workshop International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile), 2016. Abstract | BibTeX | Links: @workshop{rula:ipsfly,
title = {When IPs Fly: A Case for Redefining Airline Communication},
author = {John Rula and Fabián E. Bustamante and David R. Choffnes},
url = {http://aqualab.cs.northwestern.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/airline.pdf},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-02-03},
booktitle = {International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile)},
journal = {In Proc. HotMobile},
abstract = {The global airline industry conducted over 33 million flights in 2014 alone, carrying over 3.3 billion passengers. Surpris- ingly, the traffic management system handling this flight volume communicates over either VHF audio transmissions or plane transponders, exhibiting several seconds of latency and single bits per second of throughput. There is a general consensus that for the airline industry to serve the growing demand will require of significant improvements to the air traffic management system; we believe that many of these improvements can leverage the past two decades of mobile networking research.
In this paper, we make the case that moving to a common IP-based data channel to support flight communication can radically change the airline industry. While there remain many challenges to achieve this vision, we believe that such a shift can greatly improve the rate of innovation, overall efficiency of global air traffic management, enhance aircraft safety and create new applications that leverage the capability of an advanced data channel. Through preliminary measurements on existing in-flight Internet communication systems, we show that existing in-flight connectivity achieves order of magnitude higher throughput and lower latency than current systems, and operates as a highly reliable and available data link. This position paper takes a first look at the opportunity for IP-based flight communication, and identifies several promising research areas in this space.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {workshop}
}
The global airline industry conducted over 33 million flights in 2014 alone, carrying over 3.3 billion passengers. Surpris- ingly, the traffic management system handling this flight volume communicates over either VHF audio transmissions or plane transponders, exhibiting several seconds of latency and single bits per second of throughput. There is a general consensus that for the airline industry to serve the growing demand will require of significant improvements to the air traffic management system; we believe that many of these improvements can leverage the past two decades of mobile networking research.
In this paper, we make the case that moving to a common IP-based data channel to support flight communication can radically change the airline industry. While there remain many challenges to achieve this vision, we believe that such a shift can greatly improve the rate of innovation, overall efficiency of global air traffic management, enhance aircraft safety and create new applications that leverage the capability of an advanced data channel. Through preliminary measurements on existing in-flight Internet communication systems, we show that existing in-flight connectivity achieves order of magnitude higher throughput and lower latency than current systems, and operates as a highly reliable and available data link. This position paper takes a first look at the opportunity for IP-based flight communication, and identifies several promising research areas in this space. |
