Why Starlink's In-flight WiFi is a Game Changer

[@primalspace]

Who here actually uses Starlink at home? Shout out to CuriosityStream for supporting this vid! Check out curiositystream.com/PrimalSpace

[@letsmakegames947]

Among us

[@orbitingancient]

I do! It's quite nice, I normally get around 220Mbp/s Down, 14Mbp/s Up. (I live in rural michigan, and if there wasn't starlink i'd have to use DSL (telephone wires ;))

[@CarlLovesAviation]

6:50 That's my country flag carrier (I'm a bit ashamed of this MH370 going missing in the Indian Ocean for already 8 years)

[@primalspace]

Very decent!

[@larry_private7285]

@@CarlLovesAviation :O

[@theAstra_]

In a sea of elon musk spacex clickbait, Primal Space stands out. Thank you for making actual informative and real content where others choose to fake it for the easy way out.

[@dmurray2978]

IT HAPPENED GAME OVER

[@AnthemAnimation]

@@dmurray2978 JUST HAPPENED

[@G_FRE]

@@AnthemAnimation WHAT HAPPENED

[@SumatraXSI5]

Primal Space, SpaceX Pink, Marcus House, Everyday Astronaut and What About It are the only chanels you need to follow for SpaceX/Elon updates without bullshit clickbait photoshoped video thumbnails

[@AnthemAnimation]

@@SumatraXSI5 nasa spaceflight and spacexcentic are good too

[@DEADB33F]

I'm surprised companies like Netflix don't come up with an in-flight intranet service where they stuff a JBOD server full of content on each plane then charge to stream content over the plane's intranet. If they used lower-res video they could probably fit most of their entire catalogue onto the server with room to spare. Then maybe throw in the entire offline Wikipedia site (150GB), plus a bunch of others while you're at it. ...Each plane's content cache would be updated automatically via high-speed wifi link whenever the plane is on the ground.

[@96nico1]

Ehmmm. They are already doing that 😅

[@matteoperron5436]

I'm pretty sure that already how they work no?

[@redyau_]

Providing that library like this would require a connection still to check accounts, if you really want to use your own devide.

[@epicgamer42069]

@@redyau_ account verification hardly takes any data

[@redyau_]

@@epicgamer42069 True, and I agree it sounds good in principle. And netflix kinda does this already, having a huge distributed network. This would need to be completely different tho, and require way too much dev time to be worth it...

[@vidhush02]

I'm surprised how underrated this channel, this is a boon for us Space lovers. If Kurzgesagt had a Space channel, it would be Primal Space.

[@tehKap0w]

i don't watch a ton of primalspace vids but i would hope Kurzgesagt would do better homework than this video.

[@markc7899]

Well, in a video where the key point is bandwidth, messing up the difference between kilobits and kilobytes (kB) is rather embarrassing.

[@tehKap0w]

@@markc7899 even though you're being nitpicky, you're not wrong.

[@vidhush02]

@@markc7899 🤫🤫🤣🤣

[@megagatlingpea2322]

no dummass

[@807800]

I really never thought about the safety aspect of having real-time data of the plane through the entire flight.

[@ncard00]

This technology needs to be installed on all public transportation vehicles immediately.

[@AaronHuslage]

This is mostly incorrect. GEO sats are not limited on bandwidth because of their power or distance from the earth. Most modern Ka-band satellites have plenty of bandwidth to spread around to airplanes. The problem lies with draconian traffic management both onboard planes and within in the networks. All of the antennas used on airplanes these days are phased arrays as well...that's how they have such a low profile. Even Starlink antennas need to move. Airplanes do send data back in realtime already (using Inmarsat usually)... This video has a million technical issues and I urge you to take it down and work on it more. If you need help editing the script, I'm happy to help out.

[@G_FRE]

Bump

[@mactep1]

i agree on the bandwidth part, its mostly a latency + traffic management problem, but you cant really solve it without completely changing how the internet works, or placing the satellites closer to earth, also starlink antennas don't actually need to move, they just do so its easier to mount on a roof (a guy on youtube removed the motors and stuck one flat on top of his car and it works).

[@jeremymcevoy5481]

I've gotta say. That was the first explanation of ping that actually made sense. Great video!

[@primalspace]

Thanks Jeremy!

[@billweberx]

Excellent video with clear descriptions and diagrams. Thumbs up.

[@lampple3]

I have been on countless of flights and have tried the WiFi of many carriers, which is always indeed terrible. However, Aegean Airlines launched their own WiFi service this year and it’s by far the best one I’ve used. For just 9€ you get an internet speed of 15mbps and you can do everything with no lag what so ever. I was able to watch full HD netflix & youtube and even make facetime video calls! What’s very interesting is that I was with a few friends who bought the WiFi service as well and we would all still get the full 15mbps without affecting each other.

[@primalspace]

Very interesting! I'd love to know what kind of antenna they use

[@carso1500]

Now imaginé 150 mbps which is the max speed that some starlink connections on the ground get

[@user-yj4qz5lo6k]

🇬🇷💪🏿💪🏿

[@avgjoe5969]

@@carso1500 These aircraft are at 30,000 ft- unobstructed by terrain and most weather. I would expect higher bandwidth (shared by the whole plane). Exceptions might be in the air traffic control area of a large metropolitan airport (too much shared bandwith). So maybe not so good when waiting for permission to land.

[@boostav]

@@carso1500 They are already getting much higher peak speeds than 150mbps on the ground

[@zacharyrautenkranz7806]

Man the quality of these videos from the script to the visuals keep getting better and better. Keep up the amazing work!

[@primalspace]

Thanks Zachary!

[@caesar7734]

0:24 British Airways retired this livery in 1997.

[@dr_tails658]

It still dumbfounds me that in this day and age not all airplanes "stream" their Geo-location continuously. I mean I get it going over open water would make it an issue but we have had open GPS since access since the 90's and I think decent satellite coverage of the world for 20 years! You would think this is something that would have been mandated by now to prevent "loosing" airplanes!

[@krizzle4087]

They do stream their location continuously. See ADS-B and/or ACARS.

[@stewart8603]

I agree. The voice and data info should also be streaming continuously to the cloud. Searching the ocean floor for a blackbox in this day and age seems crazy.

[@honkhonk8009]

They actually do though. Its just not very well adopted. Think Boeing adopted this back in the 90s actually. Military has done this decades before.

[@Jaker788]

They do have a satellite text communication and check in system. It wouldn't be much to tag on current Geo location with every ping response. However you can turn this system off just like Malaysian flight 370 did for a lot of the flight until they turned it on near the end for some reason

[@rogervanbommel1086]

@@stewart8603 NO! a amazing aviation channel(mentor pilot) did a video on this, and the huge data volume and rareity of crashes makes it impractical

[@a-bell]

I love the content this channel makes. Keep up the great work!

[@louisbeaumesnil8133]

As a former user of internet satellite en France, I was living in a remote place, i had 1Mo download 150Ko upload with at best 600ms with Nordnet. Any kind a multiplayer game was not possible but youtube and netflix actually work perfectly, the video that is. I had to wait 10 to 30 sec for a any page to load but youtube load the video first and the rest of the page later. Once you take the habit of opening your future page in advance the experience is bearable. And you learn to love the well designed website, having to navigate through 10 page to find something may take 10 minutes . As a bonus, a lot of pop-up fail to load in time and die.

[@primalspace]

That sounds awful

[@ChristofferETJ]

There is a small, quite interesting, quirk in the effect of an antenna dome on an aeroplane's aerodynamics. It has to do with the area rule and efficiencies of manufacture. In practical terms, a well-placed dome may actually improve aerodynamics.

[@oadka]

unlikely, but possible since manufacturers are mostly aware of the area rule and have implemented it on newer planes. Older planes might benefit a bit...

[@GIPvideos]

I'm thankful that you are closing in on 500k subs! Your skill is great and your content is valuable

[@primalspace]

Thanks!

[@nonstopdude]

i love the "Primal Space" plane model, It could be a name for an airliner one day :D

[@primalspace]

Primal Space private jet ;)

[@darringreen8630]

Very good video to break down the bandwidth issue in ways the average person can understand. Hats off. But, I did have to laugh though...having been a satellite communications technician for 26+ years, I've never heard anyone refer to our frequency bands as "coo"for KU band, and "caw" for KA band. That sounded so funny I had to rewind and play that part again. We just refer to UHF, VHF, SHF, X, C, KU, KA, etc as is just saying the letters individually.

[@primalspace]

Oh haha, I did wonder. But that's how I've heard it pronounced before ;)

[@mastershooter64]

what exactly do you do at your job?

[@darringreen8630]

@@mastershooter64 I mostly just sit around now until something breaks. We used to work on CDM 600, CDM 600L, and DMD 15 modems, but swapped out 10 years ago to DMD2050, and then a year later DMD2050E modems. We also maintain HPAs/SSPAs, up/down converters, LNAs and LNBs, and most recently iDirect equipment all on 4.8 M to 7M VSAT type terminals, but I've also worked on AN/GSC 39D's and GSC 52 terminals. I did the initial RF engineering for the 12 terminal facility at my current location, and I was a Cell Site Engineer with Nortel Networks back in my cellular days. Thanks for asking.

[@mastershooter64]

@@darringreen8630 So you engineer and maintain hardware that's used for communicating with the satellites? that's pretty cool, so that's like the "physical layer" in the OSI model or the "network interface" in the TCP/IP model huh?

[@ReadTheShrill]

4:20 Modern caching schemes can drastically improve the latency problems. When you view a web page, your browser sends the url to a proxy onboard the plane (your browser has no idea it's not talking directly to the web server). The proxy sends a request through the satellite to another server on the ground, that downloads all of the page's elements from the website: the HTML, images, Javascript files, etc. These elements are then packaged up in one file, sent back through the satellite to the cache on the plane. Your browser then requests all of the individual elements one at a time from the cache. But since all these elements are sitting on the plane, no communication through the satellite is necessary. So you've taken a page that would normally require possibly hundreds of round trips, and retrieved it with only one. But this a drawback: some pages don't support this due to the way their scripts communicate with the server. If they use WebSockets or REST APIs they can sometimes see some increase in speed. But if they use some proprietary communication, the cache can't handle it and has to do it the old (slow) way.

[@MrFredericandre]

This isn't possible with 99% of websites which use HTTPS. Only HTTP can be cached.

[@wowfrosted13]

@@MrFredericandre you can cache with HTTPS

[@MrFredericandre]

@@wowfrosted13 with a backdoor in the browser yes. But that pretty much does not exist, for good reason.

[@oscarsmith3942]

@@MrFredericandre This is just false. Browsers cache a ton of stuff even though almost all traffic now is HTTPS.

[@MrFredericandre]

@@oscarsmith3942 sure, but a proxy on board an airplane won't be able to cache HTTPS.

[@Grubse]

My man subtly introduced TCP without mentioning TCP. well done.

[@andrewthomson]

As long as no one tries to introduce SCP's we'll be good.

[@HillaryCoe]

Wonderfully put together.

[@primalspace]

Thank you. So glad you enjoyed it.

[@Ram_kaza]

LOVE UR VIDEOS MAN KEEP AT IT

[@SpaceflightRocketShorts]

DANGGG, I heard about Starlink on planes a few weeks ago but never actually looked into it. Thanks for the video!

[@LeeAtkinson98]

Inverse square law only holds for non-collimated and non-focused radiation, anything that radiates outward spherically, following Intensity = Energy / Area, which is where E/r^2 comes from. If columnated or focused like in beams from lasers or parabolic antenna then the strength will not decrease so simply but instead with respect to a spread angle per radius due to imperfect equipment and other effects which is far less extreme.

[@Jaker788]

Good point

[@_WorldWorks]

The quality of these videos is great. From the script to the graphics.

[@primalspace]

Thanks! I went all out on the custom animations with this one

[@thoratpratik1891]

Lots love for primal space from India 🇮🇳🇮🇳

1:07 ATG actually uses 4G, at least in Europe. Just that it uses different antennas which can deal better with the doppler effect and uses a different band. ATG also allows for speeds of up to 75 Mbit/s in Europe.

[@ZPositive]

0:42 who needs starlink on their reloading bench? Who even created that stock footage? Did anyone tell them that starlink is line-of-sight and doesn't work if you mount the dish inside your garage?

[@Gibson99]

Not everyone has a dedicated workbench just for reloading. My workbench has 3d prints, quadcopter parts, computer parts, and the HVAC control panel from my car on it right now.

[@primalspace]

It's an animation

[@kunalguleria9617]

Heck of a great Explanation !

[@primalspace]

Thank you so much!

[@vortifyne]

Cheeky Nasaspaceflight plug, I like it!

[@markc7899]

In a video where the key point is bandwidth, messing up the difference between kilobits and kilobytes (kB) is rather embarrassing.

[@Kay_MYG]

It's been a long time coming

[@bob_smite]

This is a very interesting take that I didn't realize! I think this application would generate so much revenue. Do you guys think this would result in monopolistic practices if all airlines use it? Also, I wonder what applications Starlink has with the military with increased bandwidth compared to their current satelites.

[@CheesyMez]

i dont think its secure enough for the military to use, aside from aid

[@willwin4744]

@@CheesyMez The military will likely eventually they just might have to upgrade its security. So far it seems good though as I’ve heard Russia has been unsuccessful in shutting it down.

[@noobtoob7733]

Creating Technology that no one else can and effectively delivering it to customers is not monopolistic practices. Being a monopoly simply because you have the best technology is not illegal. Monopolistic practices typically means buying out competitors so that competition can’t arise within a given space.

[@primalspace]

I believe the military were the first to test Starlink on an aircraft, reports were that test went well

[@avgjoe5969]

You will soon have OneWeb, though not as good.

[@obamalore]

In french, it’s spelled connexion so not a mistake (as you show an air france too)

[@skey8809]

im a starlink user. it really works fine and stable.

[@primalspace]

And it will only get better with more satellites

[@carlosalbertomartinsjunior2163]

Please keep putting the subtitles, as a non-English speaker for me it is easier to understand the content of the videos following the subtitles

[@retrictumrectus1010]

I heard that airplanes now have wifi, so I searched if spacex also provides airplaine internet services. I guess they will. The video is so clear, concise, very easy to follow, and informative. Thanks.

[@BobFrTube]

You don't need to acknowledge each packet before sending the next. The packets are overlapped.

[@markpreidl4226]

The same speed could be fine on public transportation like long distance buses, or trains. We have 4-5 mbps avergae on cellular public wifi long distance buses ( with 4G)

[@Tuuminshz]

Great video

[@primalspace]

Thanks!

[@xRays6]

Commenting for the algo! Too good a video to sit at

[@primalspace]

Much appreciated haha

[@khoakirokun217]

Your video is way better than the sh*t from Common Sense Skeptic. The visualization is original. Hope your video reach more people.

[@primalspace]

Thanks mate!

[@russelenriquez5248]

spaceX be like kukakakakukukukskukukakukika

[@krio1267]

6:53 for a malaysian guy watching this, that was really unexpected

[@tannar4607]

: D RGV music plus NSF reference. i see u

[@inveniamviam4691]

Can’t wait for Hawaiian Airlines to implement this!!

[@illeatmyhat]

2:36 The inverse square law only applies to point sources, like the sun. Starlink satellites use phased array antennae, whose signal is extremely directional. There is no reason high-altitude satellites couldn't also use a phased array antennae. The only advantage that Starlink satellites have over high-altitude satellites is latency and density, which is why traditional satellite internet service is trash.

[@Jaker788]

Would a satellite be able to steer 1 million signals to individual user terminals if it were serving all of North America? Say 5 satellites that are for NA to serve 5 million customers.

[@baticzek8]

6:48 - BS! There are so few accidents where airplane could not be located and the cost of managing data and service equipment is so high it would not be cost effective. Rest of the video GREAT :)

[@GroovyVideo2]

Watched this Great show camped in middle of Nowhere using Starlink - Its Awesome

[@primalspace]

Cool to hear! Thanks

[@-TJ-]

I misread the title and thought this was going to be about SpaceX integrating Airplane wifi onto their Starship passenger flights.

[@primalspace]

That's a vid way in the future ;)

[@genethebean7597]

Thank you for addressing "his" anger about expensive inflight wifi

[@nepalidude]

Even though people do not pay for the airline internet, they still use the internet to play free movies, live TV, and stream music apart from texting and checking free internet pages.

[@FroddeB]

I've thought about this ever since Starlink was announced.

[@fabianbrandtaudio]

Browsing on Nasa Spaceflight's website.. A man of culture I see

[@primalspace]

Of course ;)

[@smason4622]

the KU or KA is the band (frequency range) of the radar system.

[@thestudentofficial5483]

aiding air crash investigation has been proven as the main value with real time HD footage of Starship hurdling through plasma in previous test flight.

[@waynegabler6570]

If I might suggest that is planes flying at 30,000ft shoot a lazer powered holograph onto the clouds below, the people on the ground would have some sort of picture. Same movie the passengers are watching kind of holograph (VR reciever on the ground) Chemtrails on a clear night would be 'drive-in quality from the 1960s'. Flights just above the clouds would probably show up on a thin layer of chemtrails sprayed at 30K feet, I-Max quality. SATs from space could also become part of one big show for somebody.

[@mprice323]

I too have RF equipment right in the middle of my reloading bench. Strange.

[@aarshpatel2000]

Even 500mbps over an entire plane would give each customer 2-3 mbps each if they make it affordable so no they wouldn’t make sense to make it faster, just reduce the price by a factor of 5 to make more money from increased customers.

[@lawrencepll76]

Elon Mustard

[@handlemonium]

WLAN Musk

[@RemiMan38]

Lot if inacurate explanation, mostly about geostationary satellite communication. The slow speed came mostly from the fact that the satellite is shared with lot if clients. Nothing really limitating with antennas and radio power. Also, not any web browser wait for one element to load before loading the next one. Once again, made up things to lengthen the video.

[@draemalic]

You are kind of right, but what you are missing is that conventional satellites use VLF and UHF radio waves. Starlink uses lasing. Its a completely different technology. If you look at the electronic radio wave of frequencies, Starlink is using something hundreds of times more accurate and significantly more high powered.

[@Jaker788]

Lasers you mean? Starlink does not use lasers for connections to terminals, they use radio in the KU and KA bands like many satellites today. It's the phased array radio steering that makes it more capable. The lasers are for satellite to satellite communication to hop data to a different ground station of there is none below. However that feature is not yet used and is only equipped on the 1.6 satellite version that started launching late last year.

Starlink uses plain RF in the SHF/EHF spectrum to connect to the terminals.

[@ryankolay8770]

SpaceX is actually making critical technological advancements.

[@f1lap1]

jet blue lets me stream youtube now for free!!

[@TheDanielShepherd]

Excellent video!

[@primalspace]

Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

[@M_btz]

Nice. Ten times my german wifi speed over the clouds

[@primalspace]

:'(

[@sta5011]

Imagine doing online gaming on a plane lol

[@PassportGaming]

Quality content

[@primalspace]

Thanks!

[@dennisbuns]

The ad loads first lmao

[@joe55514]

I’m a fan of tech, no doubts about that. But you could do creative work, you could watch onboard movies, you can draft email replies and send them when arrived. Basically imo people should learn how to survive 6 hours in an offline environment. Most people don’t fly regularly. This “advancement” is awesome but let’s face it, most traffic will be accumulated scrolling trough Tiktok and Instagram.

[@SumatraXSI5]

In 20 years time we will be trying to remember how the hell did we do +8 hours flight time without Internet

[@toddbaldwin3]

I know how we did it. I’ve made plenty of trips across both oceans with no WiFi and no inflight entertainment systems. We brought these self-contained things called books and cards.

@@toddbaldwin3yep, or in the age of cheapish airlines like Cebu Pacific or airlines with broken IFE, just download some movies to our phones.

[@coling.4476]

Geosats also have the problem of only being on the equator

[@primalspace]

True, no airplane WiFi for airplanes flying over the poles

[@cosmic6278]

Yes a satelite can withstand 70-90 wind knots

[@hellothere6627]

Just after the airplane WiFi issue are solved we will have hyper loop WiFi issues

[@jmd1743]

With this application alone Star Link becomes the equivlant of GPS with it's importance. Every Airline, cruise ship, long distance passenger train, and commercial ship will likely use star link due to how damn expensive the alternatives are as well as the performance. That's just transportation. We have applications such as the petroleum industry, Medical, and education. Doctors without borders are likely drooling, for instance imagine providing regular occuring female healthcare to remote Amazon and African villages for the first time, life expectancy should increase due to talented doctors being able to asist bad child births.

[@HDTomo]

Damn how much I wish for a narcissist with charisma to co trol the new age of GPS hmmmm sounds like a massive monopoly

[@jmd1743]

@@HDTomo Public traded corps could do the same but they won't actually put in the R&D effort unless somebody else hands them the cash to do so in the first place. The Soccer moms who say that Space Exploration money would be better off in their hands in the form of food stamps will be pounding at SpaceX's door steps to let their kids go to Mars, and when SpaceX tells them to F-Off they'll run to their local congressman to demand qoutas at the threat of removing SpaceX's launch licenses. Why move to Mars? The Majority of Earth's problems are caused by humans. It's time to get away the dregs of society who ran out to buy v8 sports SUVs after driving around with a Prius due to gas crises to only years later complain about gas prices once more.

[@HDTomo]

@@jmd1743 oh I'm not soccer mom, I just have problems with narcy businessmen. Also I prefer the Moon to Mars due to logistical issues

[@jmd1743]

@@HDTomo I have no problem with the FB money, but I would rather have Musk buy some eVinci Micro reactors that have been modified for Mars. Then I would have him send tunnel boring equipment & mining engineers. Instead of flimsy surface structures I would have tunnels,hallways, and rooms built into stone. If you plan on going to Mars you would pay for an engineer to build you a personal apartment that would be comparable to a standard sized Mid-west American 1 or 2 bedroom apartment on earth. Everyone would be required to do that, that way the Martian settlements would be constantly expanded. Even if there are vacancies the apartments somebody had built could be used for something even if it's storage for pots, pans, and plates. I want humans to go swiming for the first time in the deep end by sending proper engineering equipment & personal. I don't want to waste years of human life times doe dicking around with tin can surface structures, or dirt covered structures. I want within the first few years of sending humans to Mars to be engaged in tunneling. I don't want to start tunneling 20 years from now after people get tired of living in tin cans. The faster we build these underground apartments the faster we can salvage mental health. With an underground colony we could defeat bone loss & avoid radiation dangers because people would be walking miles each and every day. Also with under ground structures you could build a very large gym such as power lifting equipment & stationary bikes.

[@A3rEX]

Okay, the video unfortunately does not mention a few important points. The most important point that is completely forgotten here is the availability of support for the units. 1.for airlines it is extremely important that the system is working and above all and this is the more important point, if it does not, a service field engineer or field rep is immediately available. With the history of Space X I don't think this is realistic. Customers (Airlines & Bizjet) need to be served globally and a remote session is certainly not enough (I speak from experience).It can even go so far that a plane has to be grounded because of the stupid Internet. It always depends on the MEL and there it is enough with some airplanes if the ashtray in the airplane toilet is missing (the one in the door). This is often stolen by customers. 2. the limitation of the bandwidths are not quite correct which are mentioned here. KA can do much more than 70 Mbits per aircraft, but for the BizJet world there is no more allowed (currently even only 25 mbits over USA). How it looks at the moment with the airlines I don't know. However, I have been able to work with demonstrators (for airplanes) which have already reached 250 Mbits on the ground , with the same dish and modem(despite interference from clouds). The same is true for the shorter KU BAND. KU is also used on cruise ships and much more (bandwith wise) is possible there. 3. the bandwidth is also strongly influenced by the ground stations and how many satellites can hold a connection at the same time, because there will be the bottleneck(which by the way increases the latency massively again). And no, the interconnect (Sat to Sat) data system won't make it any better because the load will be distributed to a few small satellites again (bottleneck). By the way, the way adaptations and modifications on aircraft are approved (SB, STC, Mods e.t.c) it is no wonder that they found customers, because Space X seems to have paid for all the costs. With the competition, the modification for the aircraft type must often first be adapted together with a 21J development company and Airlines really dont want to pay for that. In general I don't want to say that it is not possible, only that it is certainly not a disruptive technology (as it is so often presented) and that the market for Internet in airplanes is not at all comparable to what a normal consumer knows. I generally don't understand why such a product is always looked at in such a one-sided way as soon as it is announced by certain companies. These are just a few rambling thoughts from someone who works with such installations on a daily basis.

[@frankc.6095]

In Spanish "Conexión" is the translation for connection.

[@FlyingBoxHead]

Starlink going up on the eve of solar maximum; this oughta be good.

[@DaSt0nEy]

ATG has been almost completely phased out over the last decade in favor of Ka and Ku (not pronounced Cah and Cue, mind you ;P These are pronounced like any other abbreviation.) satellite-based connectivity. The only area where ATG is still fairly prevalent is corporate/business aviation (in process of being phased out as well) and older aircraft (I.e Delta’s 717s and retired MD-80s). Also, GoGo (Intelsat) and Viasat, are both moving away from their older, larger rotating phased array antennas and incorporating a stacked platter style antenna now. GoGo has been at it for a lot longer with their 2Ku system than Viasat with their “Viasat 2” setup, but the new antennas for both are extremely similar and consist of 3 platters stacked on top of each other which then rotate to align and track the geosat as the aircraft moves (starlink still has to physically move and track the satellite as well to keep line of sight. It cannot be completely station like the video suggests. It won’t move like a phased array. Will be more like a stacked platter. But will still need to move). This setup is for both the Rx and Tx antennas (so two antennas per aircraft beneath a single radome) and are vastly slimmer than the old phased array antennas they’re replacing. What’s stupid though is they aren’t redesigning the radomes for the new antennas so aren’t taking advantage of the much smaller profile of these antennas. Don’t ask me for the reason behind this decision because it baffles me as well. There’s a massive air gap between these new platter antennas and the old phased array radome covering them. Also, aircraft are already constantly being live-tracked by GPS, ADS-B through Mode-S and Mode-C ATC transponders, and good old fashioned radar (though no identifiers on radar without a transponder). They’re also continuously uploading flight data over ACARS which is transmitted both by satellite (I.e. Inmarsat) and over VHF data (MH-370 was still transmitting engine data thru Inmarsat even with the ATC transponder turned off)). Carriers can log in to the health monitoring system and see live data from any aircraft in their fleet at any time. This isn’t the full scope of data that gets recorded to the FDR since the data stream is absolutely massive, but it’s still a good chunk and more than enough to see any issues currently happening with the aircraft.

Not always, in Europe ATG works over special AAUs which uses LTE B65. This also is way faster (75 Mbit/s download speeds and latencies that can be compared to terrestrial LTE).

[@demarcuscousinsthe65th]

5:19 jast

[@Microbot97]

Dont forget work from home pilot🤣

[@oscarestoa8796]

I'm already imagining Korean gamers hoping on planes to minimize lag 🤣

[@marioyanez8988]

Ever heard of space based ADS-B?

[@PeteVilter]

Is it possible to build Ku or Ka-band cell towers? 🤔

[@Jaker788]

Certainly, but these frequencies are licenced for specific operators and uses. KA band is actually used for the millimeter wave 5G in some countries and regions, it's 26-40ghz. The US 5G goes up to 60ghz. However it's not very practical on the ground with towers, as you may have heard, millimeter wave is easily blocked by turning away from the tower, is line of sight only, and the range is only around 100 meters for phones. KA is kinda in between midband 5G at 5ghz to 2.4ghz, KA is 12-18ghz. It's not really needed as 5ghz is pretty good for urban areas and quite fast speeds already, 2.4ghz gives more range for rural areas and going lower sacrifices speed but increases range a fair amount The reason it works for Starlink at such reliable and high speeds is the large phased array antenna, it has 100w radio capability and it's very tightly steered directly to the satellite in the sky, the satellite is also steering radio signals to each user terminal to make the most out of the radio power.

[@benefactionhindrance]

In the near future we will use intercontinental space travel instead of planes anyway.

[@benrodir2]

gunna be great when my home internet on starlink tanks in speed and latency every time a plane flies overhead. =\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

[@thirdbaseman124]

Pronouncing Ku and Ka as "queue" and "cah" is hilarious, come on man

[@zmm978]

Did youtube shadow ban you? The views after two days is only 20k. Your video is great, this is not right.

[@primalspace]

I hope not, but it seems like it sometimes :'(

[@GroovyVideo2]

@@primalspace shadow banning is real - happening for years -

[@romanc_1114]

Intresting!

[@CanOp3n3r]

Don’t forget SpaceX told the airlines that they could not make a login screen or a payment system to use the internet on flight. It has to be free.

[@primalspace]

For now... but I would absolutely expect airlines to take control of the pricing at some point

[@CanOp3n3r]

@@primalspace knowing how SpaceX and Tesla both operate they won’t allow the airlines to charge for the service, the airline should receive their profit in the form of people enjoying flights with internet that is fast.

@@CanOp3n3rgiven how airlines work, they‘ll likely come up with some sort of deal trying to get SpaceX to change their mind, perhaps not charging for basic WiFi like Austrian, Lufthansa and a few other airlines do if you are member of their frequent traveller programmes but charging for high-speed WiFi, perhaps under the condition of giving SpaceX a direct cut of the sales.

[@Ryanm13988]

when this wifi is better then australian wifi

[@Yutaro-Yoshii]

I think airline wifi can be fine as it is. Sure you can't have video calls, but you can send/receive emails just fine. For me, plane time is a good time off the internet. It gives me time to reflect on myself and my actions. It cuts me off from the temptation of the endless web surfing and sns reading. Also, airlines provide excellent collections of latest movies to be watched mid flight, better than netflix or amazon! Also, it would just be sad if everyone became glued to their smartphone screens in planes just like anywhere else, while missing out on a stunning view from their windows.

[@BrotherCheng]

I appreciate that sentiment but I think everyone's needs are different. Sometimes people really need to use the plane travel time for work (e.g. if you have a deadline on a paper), or they forgot to download a file / episode locally to watch. Having access to KZbin is nice for a lot of things, and there are just a lot of other reasons why people want broadband internet on the plane. I understand the suffocation some feel from the always-on internet, but I think we just need to build better discipline ourselves instead of limiting what others can do with their time. With Starlink, the bandwidth is also wide enough that Hawaiian is announcing that it's free instead of needing to pay say $10 like Gogo. That means you could use it without feeling like you can getting nickle and dimed or having to "maximize the usage" after you paid up.

[@ljre3397]

Just think about how much more they can charge for Wi-Fi with this. Tiered pricing on one plane.

[@Number86Rules]

Yeah they totally wont continue to hike the wifi price after the new technology

[@primalspace]

They said it would be free initially...

[@lain11644]

Game streaming finally becomes viable at 36000 feet above the ground 😂

[@wisefatfishe7831]

im booking a 2 way trip just to stream on discord smoothly

[@trespire]

My appreciation for Elon Musk just went up a notch.

[@gooddealonly]

WiFi on cruise ship is worst than in the airplane.

[@indusrealty4617]

Bud, no plane will have a dish antenna on top - not aerodynamic!

[@angadsingh9314]

The dish can be flat, buddy

[@johanponken]

Elon Musk is playing 4D chess all day.