Network Question

[PEPITO]

Hi,

we are just about to buy our first AirNav box to test it and if everything goes fine we will buy another 6 to creat an adecuate coverage for Sapin.

Yesturday we got Live traker and found out that the coverage is provided by other users. This is just fine, in fact we think its great to creat a comunity. Now this is the question.
If I buy a box an external antenna cable internet conection a 24h running computer to add coverage to the network that AirNav is then reselling our effort and money, why should they charge me even if its only 5€ per month to provide a coverage that AirNav is doing busines on?

Just a sugestion, why don´t you make box users be able to acces the net free if they provide the network with their signal? If they don´t provide their data they can´t acces to the net unless they pay for the traker.

Just a thought and a way to thank all those people that are offering time and money so you guys can sell a Eurpean Traker that dose not offer a coverage apart of the coverage given by your clients.

[RodBearden]

Hi Pepito and welcome to the Forum!

First let me say that your plan to give coverage over Spain sounds wonderful - really looking forward to seeing it live on the network!

In answer to your question, yes, all the network users are indeed contributing to the network, as well as receiving the data.

But remember what AirNav are doing. First, they are providing the servers, and, despite a few little problems in the last few days, it's a pretty good service. Then, they are adding a lot of value to the data by providing the aircraft data lookup, the routes lookup, the photos lookup, and their excellent support and continuing enhancements.

I personally think that 5 Euros per month is very good value for all that. You are not alone in questioning the cost, but to me, 60 Euros per year seems to be well worth it.

Rod

[AirNav Support]

Hi Pepito,

You are missing some important facts from post above which explains why we have the charge.

Firstly the original access to the RadarBox network was only for RadarBox customers and was listed as $240 per year (£130). Customers via the forum explained to us that they thought this was too high so being the listening company we are we reduced the price significally to £48 per year.

You also have to remember RadarBox customers get a free years usage on the network anyway.

The network itself costs a lot to maintain, development costs and usage costs are high as its the 1st of its kind and there many unknows with it so we cannot make it free.

In order to balance the books, we have added Live Flight Tracker for Europe which is still 3x times as expensive per month than the RadarBox network.

However more importanly if you are only looking for watch flights across Europe (delayed) and not picking up local flights and watching them live then Libe Flight Tracker is for you.

At the end of the day the RB customers, the data is 3 times cheaper and also the free 1st year.

[Allocator]

Welcome to the Forum Pepito,

Interesting first post that.  You will have to excuse me if I see it as an attack on AirNav - or am I misunderstanding you?

You have the option not to share data if you wish, that's your choice.  If you want to create a network of your own - I'm not sure who "we" is - then there are other AirNav Professional products that allow you to do this.

I don't think that anybody has paid for any Network data yet, even though RadarBox has been on the market for over a year - the first 12 months is free anyway.

Anyway, I'm sure that we all value your opinions and we look forward to hearing more of them ..........

[testmonkey]

Interesting post and something which had also crossed my mind recently! €5 / month isn't exactly extortionate but for Pepito that would become €35 / month for the 7 boxes and as he says he would be actively contributing to AirNav's business.

Maybe there is a case for situations like this where AirNav could come to some sort of arrangement with the individual user. In Pepito's case he would be giving much more than he was receiving especially considering he could be opening up currently uncovered airspace.

If I'm correct AirNav have recently removed the 'only download for half the time you upload' restriction. That does mean that those of us that upload a majority of the time are providing all of the data but still effectively pay the same for the benefit of this data as those that never upload. I agree it's personal choice whether you decide to upload or not and I'm happy to contribute to the enjoyment of other RB users but if we all suddenly took the decision not to upload what would happen then? Pepito also raises the issue that the data isn't just used for RB sharing but also for other revenue streams for AirNav.

Don't get me wrong I do understand the financial issues as raised by Support and agree that for a single box user it is good value it just becomes even better value for those that only take so to speak. Trying to work a 2 tier system of payment would add extra complexity for AirNav. I don't have the answer but do see the imbalance as it currently stands.

[AirNav Support]

"If I'm correct AirNav have recently removed the 'only download for half the time you upload' restriction."

This was never really put in place, we decided very early on that the network would be charged.

Regarding Pepito, we would happy to offer a discount to the network if he has more than 5 RadarBoxes like we do for many other products however the post he made may was intrerpted that there should be no cost for to the network for RB users which is unfeasible.

[PEPITO]

Hi again,

Well I always like to catch peoples attention with a hard start.
Know change my words.
I am managing 3 aviation companies (a junior manager at an airline, manager in a aviation consultant and owner of an operational management company). It’s normal that I would like to give a personal view on different business aproach.

Let me talk as if I was a AirNav. I have hundreds of boxes being sold. I have the data and have a potential business segment that is the people that want to track aircraft but don’t want or can’t buy a box. If I want to make a great coverage the first goal is to have available the most amount of data as possible. To achieve these goals I would really consider making the upload compulsory having like this the best coverage possible and giving a free permanent access to the network. If I have the best coverage then I have the best tracking product unlimited to any area in the world. At the same time box users also have the best coverage.
In the actual situation when people are then charged to have access to the network hundreds of box users will forget to pay, all the users that only use "their" data will not be bothered to upload and load their internet bandwidth, then we will also get those people (unfortunately growing numbers) that will want the net access have a box but will not share his data, etc. Well basically AirNav will loose tons of data that would make their program worth a lot more. People will get tired of a program where the coverage is not constant and having an area covered and then having blackouts because of people deciding not to upload. Charge Traker users a little more (7€per) month more and get more benefit and better product.

This if obviously thoughts with no market or technical studies and many considerations would have to be made before but I personally would opt to study this option as my fist option.

As you can see this is NOT an attack in any way to AirNav, this is spending my time giving ideas to make their product even better for all.

We are convinced that this is the one to go for.

BRGDS

[tarbat]

One point to note PEPITO.  For users who chose to stop uploading of shared data, they have to turn it OFF everytime they startup Radarbox.  That helps to ensure that most Radarbox users upload all the time, even if they don't pay for the network access.

In this way Airnav are helping to ensure a large population of sharers, which is a good thing in my books.

[PEPITO]

Hi,

Yes it is but if you can’t turn it of is much better!!

By the way we have orded our first RADARBOX via WIMO for a total of 865,20€ (including tax and shipment) about 120€ cheaper than the purchase directly in the AirNav web page.

Including:
Radarbox incl. Software and USB cable
GP-1090 Antenna
1m low loss cable Ecoflex-10 with N connectors
Mast pre-amplifier AS-1090
20m low loss cable Ecoflex-10 with N connectors
AS-1090BT Bias-T for DC-Feed
1m Cable BNC/SMA

We are very exited to get our hands on the box. We have a good research team and probably the first thing they are going to get started on is to see if we can get the data to provide a colour coded trace of the approach segment related to speed on vertical and plan view. Red = FAST green = SLOW. If we can start with this I suppose we will be pretty impressed.

You will probably be wondering what for? Well to provide ATC with data on what (if any) are the statistical data about having aircraft high on the approach and predict the probable speed and hence spacing between aircraft to allocate this type of traffic. As well if you do short vectors what happens to speed. This will provide local data specific to each runway configuration.
This data will probably help out on a CDA (constant decent approach) program with Boeing Research Team which I hope will start soon. I suppose you will get a few technical inquiry post in the near future.

Just for your information we will be placing this first antenna in LEPA, Mallorca Spain. Hope you have your coverage soon.

[Deadcalm]

Well, that's a good combination of hardware, Pepito - same as mine.  The Wimo antenna/preamp combo works really well here at 450 metres amsl in central France.
Should be interesting to see your first input to the network.

DC

[DaveReid]

You will probably be wondering what for? Well to provide ATC with data on what (if any) are the statistical data about having aircraft high on the approach and predict the probable speed and hence spacing between aircraft to allocate this type of traffic.

Don't forget to apply the appropriate pressure correction to the altitudes reported by Mode S, since I assume you're interested in heights AGL/AMSL.

[PEPITO]

why some traces include the origin and destination and others don´t?
Thanks

[AirNav Support]

The ADS-B data that RadarBox picks up does not have route information.

These need to be derived from the Flight ID using local and online databases.

[AirNav Development]

>Don't forget to apply the appropriate pressure correction to the altitudes reported by Mode S, since I assume you're interested in heights AGL/AMSL.

AirNav RadarBox software does this automatically if you provide the airport ICAO ident on the smart view window (it gets the QNH from the latest METAR and calculates the proper altitude correction).

[testmonkey]

One point to note PEPITO.  For users who chose to stop uploading of shared data, they have to turn it OFF everytime they startup Radarbox.  That helps to ensure that most Radarbox users upload all the time, even if they don't pay for the network access.

The statistics would seem to suggest otherwise though Tarbat. Units uploading currently tends to peak around the 150 mark which is significantly below the total number of units out there. Even accepting the fact that not all units are on 24/7 it would still suggest there a reasonable number of units running which aren't uploading.

It would be interesting to know how much time users actually download network traffic for. In my own case it is only for a small percentage of the time my box is on and uploading.

Regarding Pepito's suggestion that the software is set to always upload - this really isn't an option. Because of privacy / security implications and the fact that technically uploading the data is a legal minefield the option would have to remain to allow users to switch of the upload if they wished.