After cruise ships and mobile homes, Space announces the arrival of Starlink’s satellite internet connection in airliners. This new service, called Starlink Aviation, will offer speeds of up to 350 Mbit/s and will allow passengers to make video calls or play online games, for example.
While Elon Musk has finally reversed his decision to stop financing access to Starlink in Ukraine, SpaceX has just made a major announcement concerning its satellite internet connection service.
Indeed, the company has just presented this Wednesday, October 19, 2022 Starlink Aviation. As its name suggests, SpaceX now wants offer its internet connection via satellite directly in airliners.
Starlink attacks airliners after cruise ships
According to the company, Starlink Aviation will offer speeds of up to 350 Mbps in every plane. In addition, SpaceX promises a rather impressive latency of 20ms. Enough to allow passengers to access “previously incompatible in-flight activities, including video calling, online gaming, virtual private networks, and other high-speed activities.”
As our colleagues from The Verge, these speeds represent a major advance and greatly exceed those offered on average by the vast majority of in-flight Wi-Fi. According to the specialized site OneZero, theMost air-to-ground Wi-Fi systems top out at 10 Mbit/s.
Global coverage according to SpaceX
Still according to SpaceX, Starlink Aviation will offer worldwide coverage : “As satellites travel in low Earth orbit, there are always satellites above or nearby to provide a strong signal at high latitudes and in polar regions – unlike geostationary satellites.” explains the company.
As you might expect, SpaceX is primarily targeting airlines with Starlink Aviation. To access the service, it will be necessary to order a Starlink Aviation kit, which contains in particular an “air terminal”. It’s about “an electronically phased array antenna displaying superior levels of reliability, redundancy and performance”, according to SpaceX. The rest of the kit consists of a power supply, two wireless access points and harnesses.
As a reminder, the launch of Starlink Aviation is not a surprise. In June 2021, Elon Musk announced his ambitions to provide Wi-Fi on planes with Starlink. The boss of Tesla had even specified that SpaceX was already in discussions with several airlines. We already know that the American company JSX will use Starlink Aviation from October 2022, with the aim of equipping all of its planes by the end of the year. As you will have understood, after cruise ships, Starlink wants to establish itself in the air.
