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I recently flew for the first time on a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, registered A7-BCY. This aircraft had the universal symbol for wifi externally displayed beside the entrance door, and as wifi on an aircraft was another first for me I was keen to try it out. Which I did, without much fanfare.

The wifi used to provide internet access was named along the lines of "OneAir", which is consistent with the name of that airline's connectivity/On-board entertainment services.

What intrigued me was that there was a second wifi network available (albeit secured from public access) which was named with the aircraft's registration "A7-BCY" in the SSID of the network.

What is the purpose of this network? What data would you be able to access/see if you were to connect to it using a laptop (for example)?

(Note: I know there have been some questions here and on computer security regarding the vulnerability of modern airliners to hackers - I'm less interested in "doomsday scenarios" with this technology, and more interested on what legitimate uses there are of this network)

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Jamiec
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  • http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_01_09/pdfs/AERO_Q109_article05.pdf has some general information. I imagine it's used for maintenance. – sbooth Apr 18 '16 at 11:28
  • If it's just used for maintenance, which is not inconceivable, I wonder why they wouldnt just shut it down when in operational mode. Seems like a waste of power. Also, if used for maintenance only it seems like a waste of weight to cart it round with you the whole time when it could be an external unit when needed. – Jamiec Apr 18 '16 at 11:33
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    The power required to run a WiFi channel inside an aircraft fuselage, especially if nothing is connected to that network, is negligible. – Jon Story Apr 18 '16 at 12:06
  • I would say the PDF found by @sbooth pretty well answers this question. It covers the "What is the purpose of this network?" question pretty well, and, by inference, the "What data would you be able to access/see" portion, as well. – FreeMan Apr 18 '16 at 12:31
  • Aside from it being on, which is OK, I'm surprised they broadcast the SSID at all, seems like a security issue to me... – Ron Beyer Apr 18 '16 at 12:58
  • Maybe it's used to stream the kind of info that's usually recorded on the airplane's "black boxes" so they don't have to go looking for them if the plane disappears. – Howard Miller Apr 18 '16 at 14:37
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    @ron Broadcasting the SSID or not means nothing for security. It's trivial (I have an app on my phone) to find networks not broadcasting the SSID. – Simon Apr 18 '16 at 17:09
  • @HowardMiller stream it to where? The passengers on the plane? – JustSid Apr 18 '16 at 21:06
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    It's most likely the same wifi router,, so it's not adding any weight or power usage unless something is using it. My home router allows me to have two distinct SSID's with seperate logins and passwords. The second ID might be used by the crew in-flight for EFB functions – TomMcW Apr 18 '16 at 21:34
  • @JustSid Dish Network – Howard Miller Apr 19 '16 at 01:27
  • @sbooth: The OP says they detected a base station with the SSID being the RN of the plane. This means the aircraft is not a client in this case (there is no SSID broadcast for a client), but a base (an access point in the lingo). The link to E-enabled shouldn't be related as the aircraft would be a client, not a base. It could a protected access to the "same" W-LAN that the one for passengers, but with increased privileges. I guess the two AP are on different frequencies, one on 2.4 GHz, the other on 5 GHz. – mins Apr 19 '16 at 09:00
  • @TomMcW If it were actually a maintenance network (which it apparently isn't,) then I'd be a bit surprised if it were actually two BSS's on the same hardware. If I were designing an airplane with both a maintenance and a passenger Wi-Fi network, I'd air gap them. And probably also shut down the maintenance network when it isn't in use. For its apparent actual use case (cabin crew iPads, though,) then, yeah, you're right that it's likely the sharing access points. – reirab Apr 17 '17 at 22:12

1 Answers1

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I think it has to do with the use of IPads by mainly the cabin crew, according to this article:

It also helps to identify customers quickly, and can be used to alert other staff of a passenger’s special meal or service requirements.

In order to have to crew communicating to each other via the IPad they need to be connected somehow, so I guess that the network you see is just linked to a locally hosted server such that all the IPads can acces the same data even if a crew member makes a change.

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