Online Games on a Plane: A Preview of In-flight WiFi
As I considered whether to add a simple "Whoo," or capitulate to the less masculine smiley face, it hit me: I was in the future.
Some readers may have already beaten me here, but most will be arriving shortly. Aircell, a wireless internet provider for airlines, began rolling out its air-to-ground WiFi service last year. Customers may know the service as "Gogo Inflight Internet," its cutesy moniker.
When the posh Virgin America flight attendant announced that our flight would feature wireless internet, my first reaction was disbelief--and then skepticism. This would surely be a one-way trip to $5-a-minute charges, with speeds slightly above that of 9600 baud. In other words, a pricey service utterly useless to a gamer. But as my Steam install of Peggle proves, I'll try anything once.
As it turns out, Gogo involves a $10 charge for flights lasting 3 hours or less, $13 for longer flights, and $8 for a mobile pass. And the performance certainly justifies the price. Browsing the web was surprisingly snappy, yielding near-instant page loads--and I was on a plane.
Curious, I loaded up Speedtest.net and ran a download/upload trial to San Francisco, the closest major city. The download speed averaged around 1 megabit/second, while the upload topped out at around .25 mb/s. The ping clocked in at 150ms or so. Not bad, for 30,000 feet and 500mph. Not bad at all. But would it be stable enough for gaming?
With only a few minutes to test before landing, I loaded up Diablo II, the only game I had installed on my silly MacBook. After a few moments, I was logged into BattleNet and surveying the rogue camp. Of course, just as I had encountered a few online players, the flight attendant put a stop to my fun, like a mother on a school night.
Most users will take advantage of Gogo for web browsing and other tasks, but I was obviously more interested in what it means for online gaming. Back on the ground, I got ahold of Aircell director of product and platform management Eric Lemond. Don't be intimidated by his corporate title--he runs a team full of gamers.
"Our engineers are heavy World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty, Warhammer and Battlefield players," said Lemond, who seemed well versed in gaming himself.
Lemond explained that Gogo is essentially a modified version of EVDO wireless technology. Ground towers beam the 3G broadband signal high up to a small receiver attached to the skin of the plane, and voila, airborne YTMND.
"Our team spends a lot of time flying on planes testing out our service," he said. "During these tests we try to emulate our customers. This includes browsing, email, work--and yes, gaming."
Gogo's raw numbers are impressive, but Lemond noted that it's really the latency that gamers will have to worry about.
"The largest challenge for serious gamers is latency, and although we do a great job of making the in-flight Internet experience awesome, a plane that is flying at 550 mph and 38,000 feet is not really an environment optimized for twitch gaming," he admitted, though added: "One of our architects found that games that have self-optimizing networks do fairly well inside the plane."
Latency on EVDO wireless can vary. Users on the ground have reported pings of anywhere from 100 to 500 while gaming. Twitch-based titles like Counter-Strike look to be frustrating in their lagginess, while less lag-dependent games such as WoW and Warcraft III are typically stable enough to enjoy. My short experience with Diablo seemed to be within the realm of acceptable latency.
But while Gogo coverage now extends to the entire continental US, the company admits that a number of other factors may interfere with the service--including "network changes, aircraft and network traffic volume, service outages, technical limitations, signal strength, and other conditions." And if your plane dips over Canada--or an ocean for that matter--you'll be unceremoniously dropped from your Command & Conquer match.
So though you could use Gogo for a bit of rep grinding, you might want to wait until you land before playing anything that might, upon exit, reflect badly on your gamer rep.
"Although WoW is playable for extended periods, most serious gamers would not be successful tanking a 25-man Naxxramus run on their flight from JFK to LAX," said Lemond.
Even still, a bit of lag is a small price to pay in the interest of killing a long flight. Escaping to Diablo with a few grounded friends easily beats a three-inch screening of Marley & Me.
Games that place less of an emphasis on latency will be well-suited to the system. And even the worst ping would still allow for the download of demos, DSi and iPhone games. Casual web-based games would also be a go.
And if Gogo still seems like something from the future, you might get a taste of it sooner than you'd expect.
"By the second half of 2009, 90% of transcontinental US flights will have Gogo," said Lemond. "We expect to see Gogo on more than 1,000 aircraft by the end of the year."
Gogo is already available on several American Airlines, Virgin America and Delta flights. Air Canada and United have signed up, and other airlines are likely on the way.
I'm eager to give Gogo another spin to run some extensive tests in games like WoW and Left 4 Dead. As it stands, the majority of my first encounter included running into someone in Diablo II with "SixtyNine" in their user name. The male Barbarian walked up and quickly issued a few obscenities in my direction.
The future, unsurprisingly, is a lot like the past.
