• kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Last time I flew, there was no signal at all while flying.

    There’s a number of factors that lead to that.

    • The cell base station antennas have a relatively narrow vertical beamwidth and are typically aimed a few degrees below horizontal. (Aircraft tend not to operate at that altitude)

    • usable range of each cell base stations is typically <50 km.

    • Cell base stations are optimized for communicating with mobiles moving less than 90km/h.

    Given all that, if you happen to get a signal, you’ll be handing off between towers far too fast and too frequently for the network to reliably deal with.