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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 b
by zuhayeer 4y ago
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 their rockets via Starlink satellites.
Edited with correction that most inflight wifi is actually air to space now.
- voz_ 4y ago
- FireBeyond 4y ago> 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://i.stack.imgur.com/I7Yfd.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DSC00095-Medium.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DSC00...
- zuhayeer 4y agoI stand corrected, edited above.
- kensai 4y agoIf this has been working correctly for many years, how is it that we still lose planes? :( Isn't such connection bulletproof for the trajectory of the plane, even if simply passively tracking?
- postingawayonhn 4y agoNot all plans have these systems installed.
- cjrp 4y agoSeveral changes came in post-MH370 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Aircraft_tracking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#A...
- coffeeblack 4y agoThey are air to geo stationary, and that’s a long way. 50,000 km instead of Starlink’s 300 km, iirc.
- rtkwe 4y agoThe operational height is around 550km they're just launched to ~300km then boost and spread themselves out.
- deepsun 4y ago
- apendleton 4y ago> 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.
- zuhayeer 4y agoYou’re right, edited my comment
- jsjohnst 4y ago> 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zuhayeer 4y agoEdited my comment, I stand corrected!
- rjzzleep 4y agoOne of the main reasons for air to air transmission is because engine data (and potentially blackbox) data is transmitted through inmarsat satellites. There are two major problems here: 1. when you reach a major transit hub, such as NY airspace the bandwidth is very limited due to the sheer amount of traffic 2. Inmarsats network structure was(is?) like a honeycomb. So the further away you are from the center of each section the worse the transmission characteristics are. One problem that is rarely looked at is atmospheric interference between satellite and base station. Anyway, at least problem number two may be addressed by Starlinks vast array of satellites. It's been a while since I looked at these things though.
- Scoundreller 4y ago> One of the main reasons for air to air transmission is because engine data (and potentially blackbox) data is transmitted through inmarsat satellites. Lots of HF-DataLink still out there. Funny seeing the pings from on-lease Russian aircraft that Russian airlines seized.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago> Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Like sending Ukraine "free" base stations and charging them $4,500 a month for service.
- justanorherhack 4y agoI mean didn't they re purpose says for the Ukraine costing 10s of millions?
- blitzar 4y agoYes they gave everyone the $4,500 service even if they only took (and paid for) the $500 tier. The $60 tier is not available on the 20,000 donated terminals - 85% of the retail price of which ($1,500 and a $2,500 model) was paid for by governments.
- zaroth 4y agoThe base stations were never free - they were subsidized by various sources. But that $4,500 a month is insanely cheap and an absolutely incredible value for Ukraine. The media loves to whip up a frenzy over Musk, but Ukrainian commanders on the front have said Starlink is the single biggest advantage they have, their efficacy would drop by more than half without it, and even, they’d rather have more Starlink than more guns. Simply put no one has done more for Ukraine than Elon / SpaceX.
- blitzar 4y ago> that $4,500 a month is insanely cheap and an absolutely incredible value for Ukraine "I have bought over 50 StarLinks, with official prices right from the website in EU countries - Poland, CZ, Germany - like 400-500 bucks each, then enable portability for extra IIRC 50$, then payed monthly fee of 60$ (was 120$ before). It’s the same for everyone else in EU" Dimko Zhluktenko, the head of Dzuga’s Paw charity fund, tweeted in his response to the development. So regular joe donates them for $500 with monthly fee of $60 but $4,500 a month is insanely cheap? I have a $10,000 toilet seat to sell you.
- Zigurd 4y agoFinding b2b markets for Starlink is very important. Starlink has about 500K subscribers today. Their TAM inherently shrinks as terrestrial fixed wireless access (FWA) expands. That expansion will accelerate with 5G FWA driving interoperability, but FWA subscribers already vastly outnumber Starlink subscribers. Starlink needs tens of millions of b2c subscribers, or it needs to find high value specialized or b2b markets that can't be served by FWA.