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World-First Starlink Service on Boeing 777 Launched by Qatar Airways
- jackculpan 2y agocrazy that it's free for all classes. can't wait for it to be completely rolled out!
- bangaladore 2y agoThat's the beauty of Starlink. Its dirt cheap. And it will only get cheaper as starship can launch many more satellites per launch. We are probably not very far off of starship launching them (even if it takes them a couple years to fully work out full reusability).
- baq 2y agoIt'll take some time for cheaper, at least a few years until competitors arrive in force. SpaceX's investors need to see the return on those billions invested. ...but in general, it's amazing that something impossible 4 years ago is common today, both fast satellite internet and AI - feels like a whole another age.
- bangaladore 2y ago> at least a few years until competitors arrive in force Nobody, and I mean nobody, will be able to compete the SpaceX on cost to orbit. Every other space company is screwed from purely a pricing perspective. Of course there are national security concerns in other countries, and R&D will continue, but commercially nobody will compete on the launch price. If you mean just simply a Starlink competitor, that seems possible, but SpaceX can certainly launch satellites cheaper than what they will charge companies to do so. At what point does this become an anti-trust issue?
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoBut that's just step 1 of enshittification, right? Get all the frogs possible in the pot before you turn up the heat?
- baq 2y agovalue extraction 101 on MBA courses
- mschuster91 2y agoIt may very well be that the US government nationalizes both Starlink and SpaceX for security reasons. There have been quite the instances with high-profile Musk technology ending up in Russian hands (in latest news, a Cybertruck for Chechen wannabe-dictator/strongman Kadyrow), and Musk's personal ... deep dive into madness, as well as his questionably legal voter bribery, just add fuel to the fire of both companies appearing not really trustworthy under Musk's control.
- baq 2y agoNah they're buying their own constellation (see Starshield) and installing eavesdropping equipment in the commercial downlink centers. What more could they want?
- mschuster91 2y ago> What more could they want? The knowledge that even if Elon Musk goes completely off-script, Starshield/Starlink/SpaceX will still be there. Right now, there is nothing stopping Musk - whose shares control 78% of the voting rights [1] - to wind down shop at his will. Maybe he'll have to pay out the other investors, but like at Twitter he may just end up sticking the finger to anyone whom the company is in debt to. Having the future of space flight, low-latency civilian and military communication and low-orbit recon satellites all held together in the hand of one increasingly erratic billionaire is not something the US can afford to accept. [1] https://www.keeptrack.space/deep-dive/who-owns-spacex/ https://www.keeptrack.space/deep-dive/who-owns-spacex/
- est31 2y agoMobile websites used to be ad free as well.
- pjs_ 2y agoBeing on a plane used to be a safe haven where nobody could get me, email me, text me, whatever. Now there is an expectation that you can ask me to edit powerpoint from that nasty little table on the back of the economy seat any time between ten minutes from takeoff to ten minutes before touchdown - does my head in
- nsxwolf 2y agoWell, when I fly my work makes me get the cheapest possible ticket and doesn’t pay for extras like wifi.
- organsnyder 2y agoLooks like this offering is free for all classes. United has also announced they'll be equipping their entire fleet with Starlink and it will be free for all classes as well. Still, when I'm traveling I set the expectation that I'm only sporadically available. Not that different from normal life, actually (especially outside of working hours).
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoI'm confused by that move - why make it free when they could easily charge their captive audience for it? What's the next step after this one?
- baq 2y agoNext step is of course stop paying studios for movie licenses. Bring your own device and watch your own content, in 480p - bandwidth for full HD/4k is, naturally, extra. Ultimately they might get away with ripping out the whole entertainment system out of the plane altogether for another .1% increase in efficiency.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoStarlink doesn't seem to offer that much bandwidth.
- dabeeeenster 2y agoNo mention in TFA of total available bandwidth for the plane?
- mytailorisrich 2y agoNot sure if that actually holds true for all customers, but their public website says up to 220Mbps DL per Starlink terminal.
- aurareturn 2y agohttps://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-88ff-db89ffa72b23 https://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-... >Starlink delivers up to 40-220 Mbps download speed to each plane, enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time. With latency less than 99 ms, passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities. I'm guessing they will severely limit the bandwidth to maybe 1-2Mbps per ticket. I doubt anyone can stream much of anything.
- gadders 2y agoHigher bandwidth in Business and First, no doubt.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoThere's no restrictions of the sort
- consumer451 2y agoThe fact that it's free to the end-user seems like it would increase the number of users by enough to negate the increase in total bandwidth. I wonder if they will go back to a fee, even a tiny one, just to limit the number of users. It will be interesting to see how that works out.
- bklyn11201 2y agoDoubling bandwidth available to an airplane is awesome of course, but it seems like people are expecting a giant step here and not a simple doubling. It will be most noticeable in decreased latency so much better for phone calls and Zoom meetings. But the use case of 1/3 of passengers streaming video to their personal terminal seems already solved with existing satellite providers. "Starlink delivers up to 40-220 Mbps download speed to each plane, enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time. With latency less than 99 ms, passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities." From https://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-88ff-db89ffa72b23 https://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-... "SpaceX has revealed the official details of its Starlink satellite internet service for aviation, and it promises to deliver speeds of up to 350 Mbps for each airplane.... If Starlink Aviation can truly deliver on SpaceX's promises, that would make it a lot faster than other satellite options that only offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps per plane at most." https://www.engadget.com/spacex-starlink-aviation-350-mbps-internet-on-planes-120604594.html https://www.engadget.com/spacex-starlink-aviation-350-mbps-i...
- grecy 2y ago> already solved with existing satellite providers. From your comment I assume you have never looked into the pricing for other satellite internet with decent speeds and decent data caps. When I drove around Africa for 3 years, the cost of even 1GB/month was going to be more than the entire expedition.. (Note: I'm talking about "satellite internet" that isn't Starlink) Maybe the speed isn't an astronomical leap forward, but the price certainly is.
- gadders 2y agoCan we get it on commuter trains as well?
- consumer451 2y agoAround here in the EU, most trains appear to have WiFi APs with 4G backhaul. Isn't that a more practical solution for commuter trains?
- gadders 2y agoYou would think, but it rarely works on UK trains. But does on the tube.
- igorzij 2y agoI feel betrayed after reading the first few sentences. No human ever would write like this: "Qatar Airways has taken the future of in-flight connectivity to greater heights by operating the world’s first Starlink-equipped Boeing 777 aircraft..." "Qatar Airways has just made aviation history by launching the world's first Starlink-equipped Boeing 777 flight. This groundbreaking development promises to revolutionize how we stay connected at 35,000 feet. Let's dive into what this means for travellers!"
- mezeek 2y agoMarketing and PR humans were writing sentences like this one long before LLMs
- nusl 2y agoSure but this has the strong odor of LLM. Like, very strong.
- igorzij 2y agoYeah the ultimate impact of LLMs might be the end of SEO and copywriting. Rhetoric is cool again, as in skill to convey as much meaning as possible using as little words as possible. "Content" was always a bit of a silly term: the inherent value of it is always negative (proportionate to size), offset by the new knowledge conveyed in a piece. The attention economy is collapsing right in front of our eyes.
- kashunstva 2y ago> Passengers can now participate in video conferences Short of the airplane crashing into the sea, I can’t think of much worse happening on a flight than the experience of being forced to listen to one side of someone’s Zoom meeting.
- xenospn 2y agoOr even worse, someone getting dumped over FaceTime.
- andrewla 2y agoThe free-ness of this is completely irrelevant -- it's clear that this is a valuable service that the airlines will start pricing up in order to drive down the "bottom-line" prices on search engines, like they have done with everything else.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoIt's freeness is enforced by the supplier
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- declan_roberts 2y agoI actually like having spaces where it's expected to totally log off, so I'm not super excited. Soon there won't be a patch of grass left in the world where you're not expected to check your email.
- pragmaticalien8 2y ago38.41976759715456, -79.83094757323929 Green Bank, WV - National Radio Quiet Zone. Maybe the next genration will petition the govt for areas like this.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoStarlink is now certified to work thereish
- theideaofcoffee 2y agoMy airline of choice doesn't have any publicly released plans to upgrade their fleet like that, they are still using Boingo or whatever it's called. They still have their "no voice or video calls" over wifi rule and I hope they stick to that even if they go the way of United and Qatar and Starenshittify their fleet. It's nice to have the technology break that the small amount of friction of having to join the in-flight wifi has for a few hours when I travel by air.
- inemesitaffia 2y agoNo voice or video is an FAA rule. Lobbied for by industry workers. And also in legislation.