United’s Starlink Wi-Fi on board in action
The in-flight experience of commercial aviation is being renewed. But it’s not about seating or food; this is the internet. Some flights have introduced super-fast Wi-Fi, while passengers are now holding Zoom meetings and playing low-latency video games at 35,000 feet.
Expectations regarding in-flight internet are already changing. “I understand some people like not having Wi-Fi and being disconnected, but for me being able to fly and work during the day is extremely beneficial,” one passenger said on a frequent flyer forum.
While in-car Wi-Fi isn’t new, the coverage and speed offered by Elon Musk’s Starlink represents a step up from what’s available elsewhere.
Download speeds range from 25 to 220 megabits per second; many users achieve speeds of over 100 Mbps; This speed is fast enough for high-definition movie streaming, gaming, voice calls, and even Teams meetings.
Qantas and Virgin already offer Wi-Fi, albeit at slower speeds. (Virgin, “high speed internet” “Average typical speeds between 5-15 Mbps”.) Jetstar offers Wi-Fi on its newly refurbished Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet. A Qantas spokesman said the airline was working with Viasat to improve international Wi-Fi coverage.
Typically, onboard internet is reliable only on land, where ground stations supplement the internet signal between the satellite and the planes.
Both Starlink and its competitors, such as Viasat, rely on satellites that provide signals to aircraft equipped with antennas, which then transmit those signals to the ground station. But while Starlink’s fleet is larger (more than 10,000 small satellites) and travels in low-Earth orbit, Viasat’s fleet relies on a handful of larger, more powerful satellites in a more distant orbit.
Latency (the delay between when a camera captures an event and when the event is displayed to viewers on the screen) is lower with Starlink, providing more consistent use. Covering high altitudes with a Wi-Fi signal provides a level of coverage that current systems struggle to provide.
And the fight has been a point of tension for customers and airlines alike.
“This has been a huge pain point for the entire industry for many years because Wi-Fi has always been problematic,” Jason Birnbaum, United’s CIO, said on a recent United flight that included Starlink. “And now, if you can have consistent, high-speed Wi-Fi for free on all your devices, that’s just a game changer.”
Starlink, a division of SpaceX, relies not on a few large satellites in a distant geosynchronous orbit (about 35,800 kilometers from Earth) but on a network of about 10,000 small satellites in low Earth orbit (at about 550 kilometers). Basically, the distance the signal will travel is less.
Australians flying to and from Hawaii can already find Starlink for free on Hawaiian Airlines.
Before the conflict in the Middle East hit the operations of airlines in the Gulf, Emirates and Qatar Airways moved quickly to equip their planes with Starlink.
Air New Zealand is providing Wi-Fi on domestic flights, and Qantas is rolling out international Wi-Fi. Passengers can use their own devices to browse the internet and send emails. But they are not allowed to make calls or post content, and they can’t do that either.
Qantas uses Viasat service on 100 aircraft of its fleet of 135 aircraft.
With United’s launch, there will be more capacity for this type of high-speed inflight internet use across the Pacific.
“It will be free in all classes and all cabins,” Birnbaum said.
United operates up to 52 round trips per week from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide from October to March.
As United introduces Starlink to new fleet types, it also needs to obtain additional government certifications for each application.
Depending on the pace of FAA certification, Starlink will begin appearing on United’s 777s and 787s serving Australia in the second half of the year.
This means Australian passengers on flights across the Pacific can say goodbye to the digital isolation and patchy, intermittent coverage common on existing carriers.
But some flyers appreciate the mindspace that comes with temporarily disconnecting or being free from the internet.
Starlink has already proven popular in Australia’s regional centres, where remote communities struggle to find cheap and reliable internet connections.
Grant Milstead, United’s vice president of digital, told reporters before the flight that the company envisions “what our customers can do with Starlink.” “They can watch live sports. They can be the most productive employee they’ve ever been.”
United has so far seen “customers submit a live offer on their first home.” There was even a “customers vibration code” [guiding AI assistants to write code] to launch their first business’ website” and “customers leave voice notes for their children, sing lullabies to put their children to sleep on the ship.”
Although cell phone calls on airplanes are prohibited by FAA rules for fear of interfering with the instruments, the plane, which took off from Los Angeles and flew down the coast to San Francisco before making a slight U-turn, allowed journalists to broadcast the conversations live.
The provision of a cabin full of web-based callers offers another factor for flying: passenger comfort in the enclosed space.
Perhaps because of all this in-cabin chatter, United this month amended its contract of carriage to allow for the removal and possible banning of passengers. who plays the audio or video from devices without headphones.
Reflecting Musk’s science fiction-inspired worldview, Starlink users will accept clauses regarding the future management of MarsIt also increases the speed of information presented to the aircraft’s flight deck.
Chris Zappone flew as a guest of United.
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