Flightaware should understand Internet access in most remote places like Africa is by 3G/2G/4G broadband Internet provider by the mobile telecoms. Hence flightware feeder should have been 3G/2G/4G modern enable in the feeders to allows people in remote area with cellular network to connect feeder to Internet 24hrs. External USB 3G wifi modern will be also good. You can insert 3G sim card into feeder and get online. Please vote or tell flightaware.com to address our concerns. We are enthusias paying for Internet data and electricity cost. We cannot add cost of 3G wifi router modern to our bill.
I often use my PiAware station to connect wifi using the tethering option on my mobile phone.
No need for 3G/4G modem, phone can still be used as normal.
Geffers
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What about bandwidth costs? Would people be able to afford a 24/7 3G/4G connection? I kind of doubt it very much.
We are not talking ‘pings’ here. Lots of data is sent, specially with MLAT enabled.
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Mobile phone is personal device it won’t be available in during working hours away from the feeders and night sleeping times.leaving your Mobile phone WiFi hotspot on 24hrs will have bad effect on your phone battery. Phone cannot provide 24hours Internet connection without causing damage .
Best is to connect USB 3g wifi hotspot modern or using feeder which has inbuilt 3G modern, where you insert sim card and leave feeder 24hour online transmitting data to flightaware.com.
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Good points made, mine is only used via mobile phone on a temporary basis.
Geffers
Bandwidth is cheap here. $2 gives us 1GB.
Looks like it is the norm where he is. We do take the fixed internet for granted in Europe and US.
Geffers
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That’s a good price, even in US$.
Keep in mind that in a busy air corridor, with MLAT enabled and synchronized, data transfers can reach up to 25GB per month. This is the worst case scenario, of course. It can be as low as 2-3GB per month.
Still, you are lucky to have cheap bandwidth available, and more importantly, able to afford it.
I don’t know if there are enough people in this situation for Flightaware to re-design the flightfeeder, but that’s for them to comment. Cost of doing so would certainly be an issue as well.
That’ is true sir, it’s necessary
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And the number of flights in Africa is not so big to cause a lot of data to be sent. So maybe 1GB/month might be more than enough.
Also the 3G USB modem can use power from the USB ports of the Flightfeeder.
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Correct for the most part, but we don’t know where he is located.
A screen capture from a minute ago:
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You are right, and the reason we do not see a lot of planes might be that there are not a lot feeders in Africa.
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My feeder is located in Ghana West Africa. Currently l only use my mobile WiFi hotspot to connect to the feeder 2 hours a day. How can we convince flightaware to send us External USB WiFi modern. It costs $30 here. I contact them and was told they don’t provide. Yes we got few feeders and planes because most of us are poor but enthusias won’t add cost of 3g wifi modern to our data and electricity cost. Send flightware feeder without means cellular connection is incomplete. Is there a way we can forward this to board of flightaware??
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I’d like someone to pay for mine too, but I can’t see it happening!
Edit: (I also like single malts, but haven’t found anyone willing to fund that hobby either)
I’ve recently purchased (for significantly more then $30) a DLink DWR-921 to solve the same problem.
The site is located under the worlds 4th busiest air corridor. With MLAT turned on, it’s consuming around 60Mb per day.
At this location, MLAT is adding virtually nothing, so I’ll probably turn it off. It’ll be interesting to see what that does to the data consumption.
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Unfortunately, supplying cellular networking equipment is unlikely to be something FlightAware will want to get involved with due to differences in 3G/4G/etc and frequency bands that are in use in each country. We don’t really have the capacity to begin researching what will be compatible for each country’s cellular providers. One of the requirements that our FlightFeeder volunteers agree to provide (and are supposed to already have available) is a good network connection.
There are available 24hrs Internet access but Technology for access network is not compatible with your current feeders. 2G/3G/4G interface modern is needed. I can connect my phone to Internet 24hrs because it has 2G/3G/4G modern. All the cellular moderns come as 2G/3G/4G universal frequency standard. The Modern 2G/3G/4G cellular network coverage is at Every remote places. Modern can broadcast WiFi signals depending network sim card you subscribe to and 2G/3G/4G coverage. There is nothing like public WiFi infrastructure.WiFi if available is for Government city institution not for public use and even uses cellular moderns to broadcast WiFi. No cable Internet. 2G/3G/4G modern is very cheap on Chinese websites, less than $30. It will cost less than $20 to build modern into feeder. Or add as USB device Flightaware.com should conduct their own research and come out with solution to Africa feeders.
Not true. The dlink (above) was the only device of it’s kind available that had the 4G frequency available on my nearest cell site. Even then, I had to ensure I was getting the C3 model and not the previous C1 revision. The nearest (available) similar device I could find is the TPLink MR200, but neither the V2 or V3 had the band I need (both are current models - the V3 is just a V2 with 2G removed).
My point is that it requires significant research to identify what hardware won’t work in a particular location.
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It’s a very nice idea, even in my location too
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This modern Technology is what flightaware should be researching on. There are many cheap ones on Chinese online market. Is universal frequency 2G/3G/4G modern with Wi-Fi hotspot.
Huawei E5577s-321 provides a menu-style LCD UI with support for multiple languages like English, Spanish, German, and Italian.
Buy MTN E5577s-321 Universal 2G/3G/4G Mifi on Jumia at cheap price
SPECIFICATIONS
- 4G Band: LTE FDD 2100/1800/2600/900/850/800 MHz
- 3G Band: UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz
- LTE Cat4 150 Mbps download; 50 Mbps upload
- DC-HSPA + 42.2 Mbps download; 5.76 Mbps uploading
- 3000 mAh replaceable battery.Maximum 12 working hours
- Wi-Fi 2 × 2 802.11a / b / g / n; WEP / WPA / WPA2
- support 10 devices at the same time
- Micro SD card slot up to 32 GB
- 2x TS-9 Antenna Connector (Compatible with DMM-7-27-2TS9 Ultra Wide Antenna Portable MiMo Band)
- Standard 6-pin SIM card
Unfortunately it will not work in Australia on the Telstra network which needs LTE Band 28which is 700MHz.
S.