In-Flight Wi-Fi: Technology Evolution and Performance Challenges

In-flight Wi-Fi varies greatly due to outdated technology and airline choices, but new satellite systems are improving connectivity.

### The Evolution of In-Flight Wi-Fi: From Slow Connections to High-Speed Streaming
* ✈️  A plane can fly at speeds of **500 miles per hour**, yet the Wi-Fi onboard often struggles with speed, leading to **inconsistent experiences for passengers**.
* 📊  Over three months, data from **over 50 flights across eight airlines** was collected to analyze the disparities in **in-flight Wi-Fi performance**.
* 📶  The primary issue with in-flight Wi-Fi is **outdated technology**, with many planes still using **old 3G cellular systems**, resulting in **slow connections** that barely support **basic functions**.
* 🌐  The shift to geostationary (GEO) satellite connectivity improved speeds, enabling **streaming for music and some video**, though latency remained a challenge due to the **distance of the satellites**.
* 🚀  Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, like those used by SpaceX's Starlink, offer **significantly lower latency and higher speeds**, achieving **over 150 megabits per second** and allowing **seamless streaming on multiple devices**.
* 📡  The new ISA antenna technology can switch between **GEO and LEO satellites**, optimizing connectivity and performance based on **current conditions**.
* 🔍  Key takeaways from the testing include that **Wi-Fi performance is influenced by the number of users onboard**, and airlines have varying policies on **blocking specific services like Netflix**.
* 🔧  As technology advances, the potential for **improved in-flight internet experiences** grows, with plans for **widespread LEO/GEO technology rollout** by companies like Intelsat and ViaSat.

- It's pretty nuts. (engine revving) A plane can speed through the air at 500 miles per hour, and yet the Wi-Fi onboard is usually... - Slow. (alarm beeping) - Good afternoon, folks, from the flight deck. This is Captain speaking. - [Joanna] But not on this plane, and lots of planes you might fly soon. - Like to welcome you to 35,000 feet. Enjoy the flight and the super-fast Wi-Fi. - This special plane is equipped with a new Low Earth Orbit satellite antenna, which means... Yeah, this is actually crazy fast for plane Wi-Fi. Hi, guys. It's me from an airplane. All 10 devices are streaming YouTube. I've long had one big question. Why is it that the Wi-Fi is decent on some planes, but absolutely terrible on others? So, for the past three months, I've enlisted my summer traveling colleagues to run various tests at 30,000 feet.

I gathered data from over 50 different flights across eight different airlines to uncover what's happening in the clouds. I also tested brand new tech from Intelsat and SpaceX's Starlink. Look at these speeds in the laboratory. They fix a lot of the issues and take in-flight Wi-Fi to new heights. Let's do this. (playful music) The main reason in-flight Wi-Fi can be so hit or miss is really old tech. And if any company can make sense of that old tech, it's Intelsat, which has provided wireless networking to airlines for more than a decade. So I go on two flights from the same airline. First one, connection's good. Second one, I wanna cry. - That's because not all the airplanes are the same. The airline makes a decision on what equipment to put on that airplane at the time they acquire it or the time they reconfigure it. They might also decide not to upgrade it

at some point during its life, at which point, it just stays with the older technology it had. - [Joanna] Believe it or not, some planes are still connecting to old 3G cellular towers on the ground. - This is our original air-to-ground system. - [Joanna] Planes equipped with antennas like that connect to ground 3G cellular networks. Then they broadcast that connection via Wi-Fi through the cabin. The main provider was a company called Gogo. And it was slow, about 3 megabits per second, just enough for email and messaging and not much else. Intelsat bought the commercial aviation division of Gogo in 2020. - When you fly around on an airplane today, and you have an inconsistent experience from one flight to the next, one airplane might still have this old technology, which we installed back in 2012, let's say. That's 12 years ago,

and it's performing like it's 12 years old. - [Joanna] On a cellular-equipped Delta flight from New York to Cleveland, a colleague paid $10 for remarkably poor and giant thumbs down Wi-Fi. Delta says it plans to upgrade planes soon. Yeah, air-to-ground cellular sucked. So the aviation Wi-Fi tech providers began offering geostationary or GEO satellite connectivity from over 20,000 miles out in space. This is the most common connection now. - This is a satellite antenna that moves around and it's tracking satellites. And the reason it moves like this is because as the aircraft itself moves through space, it needs to continue repointing itself to face the satellites which are in geostationary orbit. That means they're parked down at the equator. - [Joanna] GEO is faster than old cellular systems, making streaming video and audio possible. But the latency, how quickly data travels, is slower

because those satellites are so far out in space. And not all GEO connections are equal. Nearly 70% reported being able to stream music. But with video, only 40% said they could stream Netflix or another service. For the most part, email and web browsing worked. But real-time apps that needed snappier latency like Google Docs were spotty. - And the internet, when it faces high latency, it just pauses unnaturally, and we don't want it to do that. - And of course, there were the fun times where nothing worked at all. (graphics popping) The Wi-Fi tech providers say they monitor systems in real-time, so they know when they need to send maintenance out for a fix. And you can see how many people are online. - We can see how many people are online. Here's a flight from Heathrow to San Diego, 32 people using the internet on this one. - [Joanna] So, no, things aren't perfect,

but they're getting better, thanks to Low Earth Orbit or LEO satellites. Less than a thousand miles from earth, the data travels a shorter distance, thus it delivers that lower latency or snappier performance. So, I packed my bags and boarded a plane to test. - This aircraft is equipped to a Starlink high-speed Wi-Fi. - Yes, Starlink from Elon Musk's SpaceX is powered by Low Earth Orbit satellites. And JSX, a smaller air carrier, has already equipped its planes with Starlink antennas and routers. So I connected 10 different devices to the network, and flew JSX round trip from Dallas to Houston. Sure, the speeds hit over 150 megabits per second, and latency was impressive. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. But it was more what I could do on the network. Netflix streaming perfectly. (plane engine revving) And since the plane wasn't full... One, three, five, seven, nine, 10.

10 devices streaming. And yes, I could also... Anybody there? Hi, guys. There was little to no delay, though there were some complaints about my audio. - You sound like a robot that's being drowned. - There were less complaints when I tried to call someone on the same network. Serious testing in progress. Hello. His video appears to be working, and his audio. It was like working from home. But home is an airplane scene. Next goal, not puke. Whoo. Google Docs, Slack, web browsing, Spotify, it all kept up the whole time. No dropped connections. But there are two downsides to Starlink. First, it's not widely available right now. You have to fly Hawaiian Air or JSX to get it. Then LEO connections aren't ideal in areas of heavy airplane congestion. Like here. (graphics tinkle) So... (upbeat music) - [Dave] Okay.

- [Joanna] Whoa. - This is our brand new state-of-the-art ISA antenna. Its key characteristic that's so important is that it can interact with geostationary satellites, and it can deal with LEO satellites. Wherever congestion may emerge in a LEO network, the antenna will automatically switch to GEO so that it can continue to offer the best in-flight internet possible. - So there I went again. I boarded Intelsat's test plane and flew from Chicago to Newark, testing both LEO and GEO connections. All right, 10 devices all connected. The GEO connection was better than any commercial airline I'd been on because I had the entire plane to myself, but I could still experience the constraints. Hi. - Hi. - Do you think there's a delay? - I think there's a delay. (chuckles) - When they switched the connection to LEO, it was very similar to Starlink.

I immediately felt the improvement in latency, even when I had my 10-device YouTube test going. Okay, I could join the meeting. - And the delay doesn't seem that bad with this one compared to this previous one. - Even everyone's worst nightmare worked well. The smell in here is not bad. (door thuds) How's the delay? - It's like totally normal. - You could see it in the speed tests too. The speeds on LEO and GEO were similar. But look at that latency or ping score. It's much lower on LEO. Intelsat plans to roll out the new LEO/GEO tech with airlines at the end of this year, starting with those old cellular Gogo planes. ViaSat and Panasonic are planning to release multi-orbit GEO and LEO technology too. So what did I learn from all this testing and all these flights? Satellites matter. Some other things I learned.

Where you sit on the plane shouldn't impact Wi-Fi performance. More and more airlines are offering free Wi-Fi. And the airlines also decide what services to block. For instance, United blocks Netflix on some planes, but not on others. And finally, one thing matters in a big way. Does it matter how many people are connected? - That's a huge factor. So that's where throttling might come into the picture, to limit how much streaming people can do onboard the airplane. But as we get farther and farther into the future with higher capability systems, you've got the ability to entertain up to everybody on the airplane. - Okay, but the best way for me to get better performance is to take everyone's laptops away. - You'd have a lot to carry at that point. But, yes. - All right, I gotta get out of here. - That was great. - I gotta get out of here.

How Starlink and Others are Going to Supercharge Airplane Wi-Fi | WSJ

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The Wall Street Journal

In-flight Wi-Fi can be surprisingly fast on some planes due to new Low Earth Orbit satellite technology.

The inconsistency in Wi-Fi quality is often due to outdated equipment and the airline's decisions on upgrades.

Testing from multiple flights and airlines reveals the impact of technology on in-flight connectivity.

Some planes still use old 3G cellular towers for Wi-Fi, with Gogo as the main provider offering slow connections.

Intelsat bought Gogo's aviation division in 2020, leading to inconsistent Wi-Fi experiences on flights.

The common solution now is geostationary satellite connectivity, which offers faster speeds for streaming but has slower data travel latency.

The Impact of Satellite Technology on In-Flight Internet

GEO satellites provide inconsistent internet connectivity, with 70% of users able to stream music and only 40% streaming video.

Real-time applications like Google Docs struggle with high latency, causing interruptions.

LEO satellites, closer to Earth, offer lower latency and better performance, with Starlink's high-speed Wi-Fi successfully streaming Netflix and providing impressive speeds during a test flight.

Testing In-Flight Internet with Starlink and Intelsat

The speaker tested in-flight internet using Starlink, experiencing minimal delay and no dropped connections while using multiple devices.

Starlink's availability is limited to specific airlines, and its LEO connections struggle in congested areas.

Intelsat's new antenna aims to switch between LEO and GEO satellites for optimal internet service, and the speaker experienced similar connectivity constraints during the test flight.

The new LEO/GEO satellite technology is significantly improving latency and Wi-Fi performance on planes.

Intelsat, ViaSat, and Panasonic are rolling out multi-orbit GEO and LEO tech to airlines.

Factors like seat location, airline policies, and the number of connected users play a crucial role in Wi-Fi performance, with throttling potentially used to manage streaming.