Delta Confirms It Worked With SpaceX To Trial Starlink's Satellite Internet

Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian has revealed in an interview that the airline held talks with SpaceX and conducted "exploratory tests" of Starlink's internet technology for its planes. Engadget: According to The Wall Street Journal, Bastian declined to divulge specifics about the test, but SpaceX exec Jonathan Hofeller talked about the company's discussion with several airlines back in mid-2021. Hofeller said back then that the company was developing a product for aviation and that it's already done some demonstrations for interested parties. SpaceX chief Elon Musk tweeted in the same period last year that Starlink antennae for planes would have to be certified for each aircraft type first. He added that the company is focusing on dishes for 737 and A320 planes, because they serve the most number of people. Hofeller reiterated SpaceX's quest to put Starlink on planes at the Satellite 2022 conference last month, saying that the company believes "[c]onnectivity on airplanes is something [that's] ripe for an overhaul." He said SpaceX is developing a service that would allow every single passenger on a plane to stream content like they're able to do in their homes.

Much needed

[saloomy]

Upgrade. Way to go SpaceX. Hopefully the fees become reasonable.

First things first

[PopeRatzo]

That's nice and all about getting Starlink on Delta, but it would be great if Starlink could get service to all of the US first. Right now their website is saying that my order may not be fulfilled until "2023 or later". Elon needs to take care of business instead of being a social media star.

Re:

[johngen86]

> Get Starlink to Delta's ~800 aircraft, which flies 55 million passengers per year

> Get Starlink to all of America

I doubt that one impacts the other, since they're not going to fly Dishy on a wide-body aircraft at 550 miles per hour. But even if it did, it probably makes sense to focus on Delta's 800 aircraft ahead of all of American homes.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Presumably it's not the same dish they are using for ground service. It wouldn't last long on an aircraft.

There will be a huge amount of regulatory stuff to deal with too. Interference with the other aircraft systems, safety in the event of malfunctions and accidents etc. It's bad if a few of your consumer products catch fire, it's catastrophic on an aircraft.

It will require significant engineering resources.

Re: First things first

[e3m4n]

Well if you can consistently maintain an internet connection while hopping satellites at that speed, without all the problems of tower hopping, I would say you have proven the resilience of your network. If it can keep a passenger of that plane online while streaming video or some such nonsense, then stationary ground targets should be a walk in the park.

Re:First things first

[nospam007]

"That's nice and all about getting Starlink on Delta, but it would be great if Starlink could get service to all of the US first. Right now their website is saying that my order may not be fulfilled until "2023 or later". Elon needs to take care of business instead of being a social media star."

He sends a rocket up with 60 satellites every fucking week, just for you and you still complain? :-)

Re:

[Wycliffe]

Reminds me of the Louis CK clip about internet on a plane. Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I wonder if Musk over-promised again. It could be that Starlink just doesn't scale to the number of users he envisioned. Some people may be disappointed.

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[geekmux]

That's nice and all about getting Starlink on Delta, but it would be great if Starlink could get service to all of the US first. Right now their website is saying that my order may not be fulfilled until "2023 or later". Elon needs to take care of business instead of being a social media star.

That's nice that you think you getting on "Starlink" service is always the top priority to Elon. Apparently Elon felt he needed to take care of the business of rapidly providing internet service to a country under literal attack.

Go figure you got shelved for a bit. I wonder how many other "non-cool" internet options are available in your area that don't quite get you the social media points...

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[bgarcia]

Starlink is only meant for sparsely-populated areas. It doesn't scale in urban areas. So yes, you're going to be put on a waitlist if there are already too many subscribers in your geographic area.

Not available in a lot of rural areas

[clifwlkr]

Well it would be nice if they actually did prioritize the rural areas before the cities, but in fact it was the opposite. The current delays have nothing to do with the particular cells being over crowded, it has to do with they are over capacity in the whole network and can not currently service the entire footprint of the US.

I live in as rural of an area as you can get off grid in the mountains. I literally doubt there is another single person in my cell. Pre-ordered on day one, and still waiting wit

Re:

[EvilSS]

They are launching satellites as fast as they can. If you are that far out either your location (cell as they call it) is at capacity for current sat coverage or you don't have enough coverage yet. It's also possible you are in an area that is outside the range of one of their ground stations but I think the lower 48 is pretty much covered for that now. Either way, you are at the mercy of how fast they can build and launch the satellites. I'm not sure what you want them to do here. These test with airlines

Re: First things first

[e3m4n]

Has anyone given thought to what will happen with all the starlink sats floating around in LEO should putin once again shoot down one of his own satellites causing a debris storm? The outer skin of these satellites are fairly frail due to weight constraints for payload launch. I know there is a proposed international treaty that would ban the practice, but he does not seem to be the 'stay in your lane' type.

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[cmdr_klarg]

Starlink satellites are in low enough orbits that even a malfunctioning one will re-enter the atmosphere within a couple of years.

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[tlhIngan]

That's nice and all about getting Starlink on Delta, but it would be great if Starlink could get service to all of the US first. Right now their website is saying that my order may not be fulfilled until "2023 or later". Elon needs to take care of business instead of being a social media star.

Musk doesn't do the boring things. He's just the symbolic figurehead these days. Thus his job is more influencer (the term for social media star) than engineer as CEO.

Yeah yeah, we liked Musk the Engineer back in the d

travel and rural should be Starlink's focus.

[andthatsalright]

(True) 5G speeds are good enough to put pressure on current home network ISPs. Starlink trying to dive into urban and suburban markets doesn't make much sense given the needs for extremely clear views. Airplanes, ships, and rural households should be all they are concerned about for the moment. (just please: flex some muscle and get the prices lower while traveling)

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[fazig]

To be fair, urban and suburban markets never were a larger goal.
And I also don't see a claim that it has become a goal. This is about airplanes. So I'm not quite sure what your point is.

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[DrXym]

I think the bigger issue for urban areas is contention. Early users of Starlink rave about the speeds they're getting but I wonder how that holds up if there are (let's say) 50,000 users in a geographic area. There are only going to be a number of satellites going overhead to share between those users so service is obviously going to degrade over time and probably far more dramatically than it would with a terrestrial based system. It might also ebb and flow in weird ways since sometimes there may be more s

Re:

[jabuzz]

Someone did a calculation a while back that showed that for the UK with a full constellation of satellites there would be less bandwidth avaliable across the whole of the UK from Starlink than from the FTTC cabinets in a medium sized town.

Any satellite based solution is not, cannot and never will be a solution for urban broadband. Even 4G/5G is not a solution for urban broadband as if everyone ditched their fibre/copper based connection the cells would be overwhelmed. By the time you have a cell density eno

WTF offs "Delta"?

[fbobraga]

...never heard about a enterprise with this name...

Re: WTF is "Delta"?

[fbobraga]

* "is" (not "off": cellphone auto correct - sorry)

Re:

[Dareth]

Delta is an airline. I have been in the board room where the company was managed from.

Still waiting for StarLink for RVs..

[junkname]

If that came out I could officially sell everything, move into my RV, and travel the country while still working the same job. The only thing holding us back right now is the lack of reliable, high speed internet when on the go. Geosync satellite internet is both slow and high latency, and horrendously expensive, cell phone is unreliable (and expensive, hard to find "true" high speed unlimited). Waiting for that "RV" StarLink announcement eagerly.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Then this cooperation between Delta and Starlink should be good news for you.

If they make Starlink work on planes, which are moving over large distances at rather high velocities, then it also ought to work for a much more 'stationary' RV on the ground.

elmagrysat

[elmagry]

https://elmagrysat.business.si... [business.site]