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Starlink Aviation

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Re: Starlink Aviation

#151

Post by zuhayeer »

FireBeyond wrote: post #116
zuhayeer wrote: post #100

Once upon a time, all plane transmissions were pretty much air to ground. As inconsequential as it may seem, the positioning of antennas above the plane are a bit metaphoric for flipping things up side down. Looking out into space instead of back to earth. Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Pretty much dogfooding…

> In-flight wifi (and otherwise all other transmissions) have pretty much always been air to ground This has not been the case for several years. Most in flight Wifi is now being provided by Viasat which, as the name suggests, is air to space. Even Gogo started rolling out satellite service in 2015. Very few services are now air-to-ground. Random pictures: https://i.stack.imgur.com/I7Yfd.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.n…

I stand corrected, edited above.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#152

Post by zuhayeer »

apendleton wrote: post #119
zuhayeer wrote: post #100

Once upon a time, all plane transmissions were pretty much air to ground. As inconsequential as it may seem, the positioning of antennas above the plane are a bit metaphoric for flipping things up side down. Looking out into space instead of back to earth. Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Pretty much dogfooding…

> In-flight wifi (and otherwise all other transmissions) have pretty much always been air to ground Would be curious to see a citation. My understanding was that of the major providers of in-flight Internet, only Gogo was air-to-ground, and that pretty much everybody else (Thales, ViaSat, etc.) was either Ku- or Ka-band satellite, which has been winning out because it still works over water.

You’re right, edited my comment

Re: Starlink Aviation

#153

Post by rippercushions »

kube-system wrote: post #148
rippercushions wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, the market has repeatedly shown that people will choose the cheapest ticket above all other considerations. Unless somebody else is paying the bill, and those business travelers are also the ones most likely to fork out $20/flight for Internet connectivity.

Yes, the largest volume chooses the cheapest ticket. However, enough people choose premium options that premium airlines exist.

See also: somebody else paying the bill. I've flown plenty of business class, but never paid anything close to full fare for it: it's either the company footing the bill, miles/points, or (rarely) some crazy routing/fare that gets me within 2x of regular economy.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#154

Post by zuhayeer »

jsjohnst wrote: post #149
zuhayeer wrote: post #100

Once upon a time, all plane transmissions were pretty much air to ground. As inconsequential as it may seem, the positioning of antennas above the plane are a bit metaphoric for flipping things up side down. Looking out into space instead of back to earth. Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Pretty much dogfooding…

> have pretty much always been air to ground That’s not been true for over 5 years, getting closer to a decade. I’d be happy to show wifi speed/GPS location pairs for United Airlines flights over the past decade, including many trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic flights.

Edited my comment, I stand corrected!

Re: Starlink Aviation

#155

Post by kjksf »

dirtyid wrote: post #124
cdnsteve wrote: post #62

It would be nice if Starlink could honour their existing obligations as a priority first. I have reserved Starlink here in Canada nearly two years ago and received an email advising it's now been pushed to summer 2023. That's three years of waiting. I was also emailed last year advising the monthly cost has increased and so has the dish itself. Shouldn't providing down payment legally guarantee to buy a service at or…

It seems inevitable Starlink will prioritize profitable commercial ventures first. Industry is going to find more data intensive applications and squeeze out residential use.

The way Starlink works SpaceX has no means to prioritize airplanes over residential.

If you wait for service in residential area it's because it's oversubscribed and SpaceX has to put more satellites in orbit or build more ground station.

Those satellites are the same that support airplanes so they benefit all use cases.

The issue is coverage i.e. bandwidth per area. The way Starlink works is that bandwidth (satellites) is more or less uniformly distributed over area. They can't just add one satellite over a city in Canada to provide more service there. To double available bandwidth in Canada they have to double the number of Satellites.

Airplanes (and boats) don't compete for bandwidth with residential because most of the time they are over areas without other Starlink users.

The antennas are not the same so it's not like an airplane antenna fights with residential antenna.

If anything, making more money boats and airplanes helps SpaceX build satellites and antennas faster so this service is a win for residential as well.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#156

Post by drusepth »

usefulcat wrote: post #132
FireBeyond wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like offering a $25,000/mo aviation service (which could be at almost any latitude) might be pretty risky, in that case. For $25,000/mo, customers are going to expect connectivity.

For aviation, they'll get connectivity most of the time; it will just flake out occasionally. The real question is, what are the prices of the services they're competing against? I'll bet those prices are higher.

According to this Viasat brochure [1], their top global (not regional) plan is $14k/mo with speeds ranging 20-40Mbps, or approx. $466 per 1Mbps. Comparatively, $25k/mo for 350Mbps would average $71 per 1Mbps, or ~6x cheaper for the speed.

We'll see how the actual speed (and reliability) shake out in practice, though.

[1] https://viasat.widen.net/s/clgfbt6sdz/1487977_business_aviat...

Re: Starlink Aviation

#157

Post by [deleted] »

socialismisok wrote: post #84
cdnsteve wrote: post #62

It would be nice if Starlink could honour their existing obligations as a priority first. I have reserved Starlink here in Canada nearly two years ago and received an email advising it's now been pushed to summer 2023. That's three years of waiting. I was also emailed last year advising the monthly cost has increased and so has the dish itself. Shouldn't providing down payment legally guarantee to buy a service at or…

Having been a Tesla owner for a decade, give or take, I think the motto for Musk's companies may as well be "over promise and under deliver"

[deleted]

Re: Starlink Aviation

#158

Post by addaon »

kjksf wrote: post #101
carl_dr wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vs “from $2795 per month” for Viasat. https://go.viasat.com/BAV-Viasat-Select-Business-Jet-WiFi.ht...

Per https://viasat.widen.net/s/clgfbt6sdz/1487977_business_aviat... $2795 is for 15GB data cap which is nothing. Their unlimited local service is $10k, unlimited global service is $14k $14k is more expensive than the cheapest $12.5k from Starlink and less expensive than $25k most expensive plan. Except Starlink is 350 MB/s vs. 30 MB/s from ViaSat. Starlink is 5x-10x cheaper per speed.

Viasat latency is also typical for geostationary service, which is to say bad to the point of being limiting. For things like videoconferencing, Starlink will be much more viable, even at the same bandwidth.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#159

Post by TulliusCicero »

eganist wrote: post #105

Edit: a fatal assumption that it's the airlines providing the service underpins my original post below, whereas instead it's the providers charging passengers directly. That's an entirely different model from below, so disregard my original comment aside maybe my last line. Preserving the comment for context though. --- At 25,000/mo, assuming a jet makes 60 trans-con segments in the US per month and a price of $20 pe…

I think the economics would probably work out for longer international flights. I fly economy with my family and I'd probably be willing to dump out $20/passenger for flights from Seattle to Japan/Europe, considering you're stuck in a seat for like 10 hours. That seems like it'd make long flights quite a bit nicer at a reasonable cost.

Alternatively being able to work more means I don't have to burn as many vacation days just on the transiting parts of travel.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#160

Post by freetime2 »

rippercushions wrote: post #127
dfdz wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flex, not a tool Suppose that a plane has 250 seats and makes 50 trans-con flights a month. Airline A decides to advertise having fast internet access in their flight, and raises ticket prices by $2 a seat to fund it. (250)(50)(2) = 25000 Airline B stays with slow barely usable internet. Which ticket do you book?

Alas, the market has repeatedly shown that people will choose the cheapest ticket above all other considerations. Unless somebody else is paying the bill, and those business travelers are also the ones most likely to fork out $20/flight for Internet connectivity.

This is anecdotal of course, but I have no qualms about paying a premium out of my own pocket to fly a preferred airline. Anything up 15% and I wouldn't even think twice - and I'd be willing to pay far more than that to avoid certain carriers.

Fast internet is something I would be willing to pay for on certain flights - either as part of the ticket price or as an add-on. Although most of the time I'm content to zone out to a movie or sleep.

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