Airborne internet is the installation of a broadband internet hub on an aircraft that is 52,000 feet above sea level and beyond. This means that the aircraft flies above clouds and beyond weather interruption. This height is also above the normal flight envelope that commercial aircrafts fly. However, and internet connection can still be made possible at these outstanding heights. The introduction of airborne internet is seen as an ideal answer to the high demand for internet connectivity at all times and in virtually any location. The only limiting factor with this kind of internet connection is the physical medium that is used to channel internet signals. Most of the available media will not allow a fast connection to be established. A good example is the use of telephone lines to establish a connection. A telephone line can only allow a bandwidth speed of about 56 kilobytes of data per second under ideal conditions. This speed is often unreliable when downloading or uploading substantial amounts of data. This if compared to direct subscription lines or cable, which sometimes carry over 100,000 kilobytes per second, shows a considerable disparity.
Airborne internet is satellite-based, meaning it goes around the problem of having to set up the enormous infrastructure required for a land-based broadband internet connection. Airborne internet is also quite simple to access. All a subscriber needs is an external antenna that the internet service provider has installed and that can connect to wireless or ground-based systems that act as the distributors. An internet hub is also installed in an aircraft to enable the wireless connection to take place. Airborne connectivity has been seen as the solution to provide internet connectivity to mobile devices while flying. While ground-based systems are limited by the physical medium on how much data they can deliver, the situation is a little different with satellite internet. Land-based lines can only deliver a certain amount of data due to the diameter of the cable in use. This limitation is not there with airborne internet enabling its use to be almost limitless.
To take advantage of the growing need to have broadband airborne internet, several companies are working on the airborne internet concept and they envision broadband internet connectivity will be available once their systems are operational. One way this will be made possible is by the deployment of blimps or aircrafts specifically for offering internet access. It is expected that broadband airborne internet will be available sooner than originally anticipated.