기내 Wi-Fi: 기술 발전과 성능 과제

### 기내 Wi-Fi의 진화: 느린 연결에서 고속 스트리밍으로: 기내 Wi-Fi의 진화
* ✈ 비행기는 **시속 500마일의 속도**로 비행할 수 있지만 기내 Wi-Fi는 종종 속도에 어려움을 겪으며 승객에게 일관성 없는 경험을 제공합니다.
* 📊 기내 Wi-Fi 성능의 차이를 분석하기 위해 **3개월에 걸쳐 8개 항공사의 50개 이상의 항공편**에서 데이터를 수집했습니다.
* 📶 기내 Wi-Fi의 주요 문제는 **오래된 기술**이며, 많은 비행기가 여전히 **구형 3G 셀룰러 시스템**을 사용하고 있어 연결 속도가 느리고 기본 기능도 거의 지원하지 않는다는 점입니다.
* 🌐 정지궤도(GEO) 위성 연결로 전환하면서 속도가 향상되어 **음악과 일부 동영상 스트리밍이 가능**해졌지만, 위성 거리로 인해 **지연 시간은 여전히 문제**가 되고 있습니다.
* 🚀 SpaceX의 스타링크에서 사용하는 것과 같은 저지구궤도(LEO) 위성은 **초당 150메가비트 이상**을 달성하고 여러 디바이스에서 원활한 스트리밍을 지원하는 등 **지연 시간이 훨씬 짧고 속도가 빠릅니다.**
* 📡 새로운 ISA 안테나 기술은 **GEO 위성과 LEO 위성 사이를 전환**하여 현재 상황에 따라 연결과 성능을 최적화할 수 있습니다.
* 🔍 테스트의 주요 시사점은 **기내 사용자 수에 따라 Wi-Fi 성능이 영향을 받는다는 점**과 **항공사마다 넷플릭스와 같은 특정 서비스를 차단하는 정책이 다르다는 점**입니다.
* 🔧 기술이 발전함에 따라 기내 인터넷 환경이 개선될 가능성이 커지고 있으며, **Intelsat 및 ViaSat과 같은 회사에서 광범위한 LEO/GEO 기술**을 출시할 계획입니다.

기내 Wi-Fi는 오래된 기술과 항공사 선택에 따라 크게 달라지지만 새로운 위성 시스템이 연결성을 개선하고 있습니다.

- 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

The Wall Street Journal takes you inside carefully selected stories and events in a visually captivating way so you can dig deeper into the news and insights that matter to you. 

The Wall Street Journal

새로운 저궤도 위성 기술 덕분에 일부 항공기에서는 기내 Wi-Fi 속도가 놀라울 정도로 빠를 수 있습니다.

Wi-Fi 품질이 일관되지 않은 이유는 오래된 장비와 항공사의 업그레이드 결정 때문인 경우가 많습니다.

여러 항공편과 항공사의 테스트를 통해 기술이 기내 연결에 미치는 영향을 확인할 수 있습니다.

일부 비행기는 여전히 구형 3G 셀룰러 타워를 Wi-Fi로 사용하며, 주요 공급자인 Gogo는 느린 연결을 제공합니다.

Intelsat이 2020년에 Gogo의 항공 사업부를 인수하면서 기내 Wi-Fi 환경이 일관되지 않게 되었습니다.

현재 일반적인 솔루션은 정지 위성 연결로, 스트리밍 속도는 빠르지만 데이터 이동 지연 시간이 느림니다.

위성 기술이 기내 인터넷에 미치는 영향

GEO 위성은 일관성 없는 인터넷 연결을 제공하며, 사용자의 70%만이 음악을 스트리밍할 수 있고 40%만이 동영상을 스트리밍할 수 있습니다.

Google 문서 도구와 같은 실시간 애플리케이션은 높은 지연 시간으로 인해 중단이 발생하기도 합니다.

지구에 더 가까운 LEO 위성은 지연 시간이 짧고 더 나은 성능을 제공하며, 시험 비행 중에 스타링크의 고속 Wi-Fi는 넷플릭스를 성공적으로 스트리밍하고 인상적인 속도를 제공했습니다.

스타링크 및 인텔샛으로 기내 인터넷 테스트하기

스타링크를 사용하여 기내 인터넷을 테스트한 결과, 여러 장치를 사용하는 동안 지연이 최소화되고 연결이 끊어지지 않았습니다.

Starlink는 특정 항공사에서만 이용할 수 있으며, 혼잡한 지역에서는 LEO 연결이 원활하지 않음.

Intelsat의 새로운 안테나는 최적의 인터넷 서비스를 위해 LEO 위성과 GEO 위성 사이를 전환하는 것을 목표로 하며, 시험 비행 중에 비슷한 연결 제약을 경험했습니다.

새로운 LEO/GEO 위성 기술은 비행기의 지연 시간과 Wi-Fi 성능을 크게 개선하고 있습니다.

인텔샛, 비아샛, 파나소닉은 항공사에 다중 궤도GEO 및 LEO 기술을 출시하고 있습니다.

좌석 위치, 항공사 정책, 연결된 사용자 수와 같은 요인은 Wi-Fi 성능에 중요한 역할을 하며, 스로틀링은 스트리밍 관리에 사용될 가능성이 있습니다.