Inflight Connectivity: Deploying Different Communication Networks inside an Aircraft

The key requirement of fifth generation (5G) systems is seamless connectivity for anyone and anything. The current form of terrestrial mobile systems are mostly mature enough to provide connectivity for any terrestrial user and device. Nowadays, several projects seek to enhance the terrestrial systems to provide such connectivity to airborne users. However, providing connectivity for every airborne user needs a special design for different aircraft types. Due to the shape and structure of an aircraft, widely used system and channel models in terrestrial systems cannot be directly applied to onboard communication systems. In this paper, the realistic throughput performance of three different wireless communications technologies namely, Long Term Evolution (LTE), Wireless-Fidelity (WiFi) and Light-Fidelity (LiFi) is investigated inside a medium-sized commercial aircraft. It is shown that the average user throughput performance is 1.6 Mbps, 2.7 Mbps and 16.6 Mbps for onboard WiFi, LTE and LiFi systems, respectively.