This paragraph is absurd. Not sure if the author was excessively exaggerating or this is true. Can someone who's a domain expert or is familiar with the device to clarify why in-flight WAPs are 10x more expensive but 10x more fragile? Cosmic rays?
Called Wireless Access Points (or WAPs), these black boxes
function similarly to Wi-Fi routers that would be found in a
home, but because they’re on an airplane, they cost 10 times more
and break 10 times more easily. Each WAP is connected by a
QuadRax cable, which is essentially formed of wires within wires
within wires.
Certifications usually account for pricing. My father's small plane has a rather simple radio that costs $5k because it's the only one certified to go into his specific plane. You could get a functionally identical radio for under $50, but using it in his plane would be illegal.
The fragility bit doesn't seem too unreasonable. Being encased in the hull of a plain means drastic temperature variations, air pressure variations and TONS of vibration.
Sounds like it's more of a joke, but I bet it feels like they break down more often - it's probably not trivial to just powercycle it mid-flight like you would your router at home.
I have used in-flight WiFi on about 10 to 15 flights, and I would say that about half those times it either breaks midway through the flight or it doesn't work at all. From my anecdotal experience the failure rate is more like 100x higher than home WiFi.
Not that I'm complaining, it's magical to even get WiFi for a few seconds in an airplane. I try to hold the same attitude as Louis CK on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0
It's not really the WiFi component that is unreliable though. It's the connection to the ground. Every time the Internet connection breaks down, the WiFi connection itself is fine.
