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Communications The Internet Wireless Networking

Elon Musk Says Starlink Will Provide Faster Internet Speeds On Airlines (cnbc.com) 53

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Elon Musk touted SpaceX's plan to use Starlink for in-flight Wi-Fi, saying in a tweet on Thursday that the service could add "low latency ~half gigabit connectivity in the air!" CNBC reports: Starlink is the company's plan to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. SpaceX has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites to date, and the network has more than 100,000 users in 14 countries who are participating in a public beta, with service priced at $99 a month.

Airlines work with satellite broadband providers for inflight Wi-Fi, with Viasat and Intelsat -- the latter of which purchased Gogo's commercial aviation business -- two such companies that add connectivity on flights by airlines including Delta, JetBlue, American Airlines and United. But, while existing services use satellites in distant orbits, Starlink satellites orbit closer to the Earth and could boost the speeds that passengers see inflight. SpaceX Vice President Jonathan Hofeller earlier this year said that the company is "in talks with several" airlines about adding Starlink in-flight Wi-Fi, noting that it has an "aviation product in development." Hofeller also emphasized that Starlink "provides a global mesh," so that "airlines are flying underneath that global mesh have connectivity anywhere they go."
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Elon Musk Says Starlink Will Provide Faster Internet Speeds On Airlines More

Elon Musk Says Starlink Will Provide Faster Internet Speeds On Airlines

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  • Naw (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Aighearach ( 97333 )

    It's too cheap, airlines will never agree.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ac22 ( 7754550 )

      I expect that airlines will pay a certain amount for the service ($X), and charge their passengers a great deal more ($Y).

      It's a bit like what they do with food, drink and duty-free products. Ingenious, really.

      • I'm hoping to patent my way to charge passengers for oxygen.

      • The concept of markup is ingenious now?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ac22 ( 7754550 )

          That's nothing. Some people have been known to express views that are somewhat different to their actual views, for the purposes of humor and/or mockery. Certain people have a keener instinct for detecting this rhetorical device than others.

      • People buy "duty free" products because they're cheaper than the price at home, or at least they believe it is cheaper.

        If people know that there is 1000% markup they'll be angry. If it is the same price with only 100% markup, they might just shrug.

        That's why I think the airlines will prefer to stick with more expensive options as long as they can.

    • Re:Naw (Score:4, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday October 15, 2021 @03:55AM (#61894273) Homepage Journal

      It might end up being quite expensive because getting it certified for aircraft use will be costly.

      First it needs to be demonstrated not to interfere with any aircraft systems, for each type of aircraft it is used on. Then it needs to be proven safe, no overheating and starting a fire etc. After that they need to figure out how to mount it on the aircraft, can't just bolt a dish to the fuselage. The mounting will be different for every aircraft type.

      The technology needed to make it work at 900 kph and 10k metres up will be quite different to a stationary dish on the ground too.

      Also "fast" is a relative term, on the ground people are seeing 100-150mbps, divide that between 300 passengers trying to stream Netflix... It will need some careful bandwidth management so that someone trying to post in-flight photos to Instagram doesn't saturate the uplink etc.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It might end up being quite expensive because getting it certified for aircraft use will be costly.

        Certification is costly and slow.

        First it needs to be demonstrated not to interfere with any aircraft systems, for each type of aircraft it is used on. Then it needs to be proven safe, no overheating and starting a fire etc. After that they need to figure out how to mount it on the aircraft, can't just bolt a dish to the fuselage. The mounting will be different for every aircraft type.

        Once certified for one aircraft certification for another aircraft isn't all that hard. It is significantly easier than getting the first one.

        The technology needed to make it work at 900 kph and 10k metres up will be quite different to a stationary dish on the ground too.

        The satellites are moving 26208 kph and are 340-1150km up. I don't think aircraft will be a problem.

        Also "fast" is a relative term, on the ground people are seeing 100-150mbps, divide that between 300 passengers trying to stream Netflix... It will need some careful bandwidth management so that someone trying to post in-flight photos to Instagram doesn't saturate the uplink etc.

        I agree, which is why it will like be priced high enough that most passengers don't buy in.

        • Most airplanes don't even have 300 passengers, but even if they did, some of us are going to be reading a book or something and would use minimal bandwidth.

          Imagine a show that you think "everyone" watched. 5 or 10 million people on the entire planet actually watched that show.

      • Since StarLink "dishes" are flat and used a phased array (which can be steered very very quickly), mounting the "dishes" and steering them shouldn't be a mayor issue.

  • First things first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday October 14, 2021 @06:33PM (#61893517) Journal

    Starlink has been "coming soon" to my rural area for almost three years now. Currently, the website says "mid to late 2021".

    Maybe Musk should roll out service for people on the ground before he starts making promises in the air.

    • Yes, pretty soon when it's available on certain flight routes, people can complain that it's not on their flight routes. Lol
      • Tracking your own flight while actually on the flight will most likely land you in a detention cell these days, after the flight is diverted with an F-22 escort. It's probably best to just quietly eat your peanuts and watch an inflight movie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Obviously, there have been delays in many things over the last couple of years due to shortages in supply chain and labor, and, lots of broken promises all around. By now, the target dates should have been adjusted, so if the "mid to late 2021" doesn't come to fruition, I'd argue that would be your first valid complaint that's really their fault.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      Mine is set for late 2022.

      [John]

    • Maybe Musk should roll out service for people on the ground before he starts making promises in the air.

      Have you never worked in product development? The ground based system is in production. The reason you don't have one is because there haven't been enough manufactured yet. The engineering is done, and the engineers have moved on to this system.

      Do you think Apple isn't developing the iPhone 14 while the 13 is in production?

  • low latency under load on starlink would be better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mtaht ( 603670 ) on Thursday October 14, 2021 @06:38PM (#61893545) Homepage
    Ironically, the dishy and starlink router team, had totally missed bufferbloat - in may 2021 - and the fixes for it, long in Linux - which meant that uploads had 400ms latency , downloads 300ms, and the wifi, a stunning 7 seconds. This is a FAR cry from "low latency" for real traffic. I was shocked. It looked like they'd used a 10 year old version of openwrt (openwrt adopted fq_codel universally in 2012) for that release!!! Anyway, after trying to file a bug, I did have a hope-filling encounter with the starlink engineers. Entertaining story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    I really, really, really hope they're gonna fix bufferbloat in their coming release. Thoroughly. And then elon can go around boasting the best internet in the world, without growing a carrot for a nose.

  • Current state of wifi on the plane is atrocious (Score:3)

    by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Thursday October 14, 2021 @07:35PM (#61893639) Homepage
    I travel occasionally. And on very long flights, I try to get catch up on work. It is not a pleasant experience. Sometimes I will get a halfway decent connection. But it lasts a few minutes and then back to slowville or no connection. I welcome Elon or anybody else trying to improve the situation.
    • I hate when you pay your $8 to get your Really Important Email and then it doesn't even happen to work on that occasion.

  • Starlink can provide internet to Blue Origin to so the millionaire d-bags can just Insta themselves the whole flight and let William Shatner actually enjoy his trip in a meaningful, thoughtful way.

    Worse yet were the vids post touchdown where Shatner is emotionally explaining to Bezos how the trip affected him, and said d-bags in the background are having their loud Fyre festival behind him. Also Bezos, don't mean to get personal but your girlfriend is an attention ..rhymes with bore.

  • So me using my cellphone could knock my flight out of the sky but Elon can irradiate the global fleet of aircraft with targeted info-rays and it's not a problem?

    • Radiated power is diminished according to r square. The satellites are like 500 miles above the airplanes. Your cell phone is literally inside the airplane. There is like 170 dB of path loss from satellite to airplane.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by haruchai ( 17472 )

        If it were that easy to interfere with , terrorists would have had planes falling out of the sky without firing a shot for decades.
        the "concerns" has always been theoretical & pretty much only ever about selling an expensive monopoly service to passengers who can't go without.

        I guess it was a much easier sell than a 1st class seat upgrade

        • Are the concerns with cell service theoretical? My understanding is that it causes problems for the cell towers, as you are so high, you have a clear view of many more cell towers, and so it causes disproportionate traffic amounts as your phone pings the towers, as well, due to speed it causes tower handoffs faster than the network was really designed to handle. All of this contributes to a sort of denial of service condition across large parts of the cell network.

        • Not saying cell phones are definitely dangerous to navigation. Just saying that 170 dB of path loss from satellite to aircraft buys you a lot of immunity. Also, if a whole bunch of people have cell phones in the aircraft that would be a lot of RF rattling around inside a metal can.

    • Itt's more that you wreak havoc on the cell networks beneath you as you hand off from site to site to site at 900 km/hr. It generates a lot of extra traffic on the network
  • I highly doubt Elon can beat the latency issues... Iridium failed for a reason. But perhaps :-)
    • Starlink sats are about 200km lower than Iridium, the newest ones will also use direct links between sats, both of these reduce latency. The biggest reason for Iridium's initial failure was the high capital cost, which led to high service costs.

  • Like on cruise ships!

  • Airplanes are 10 miles nearer the satellites.

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