Qantas WiFi (aka Qantas inflight Internet)

[moa999]

StarLink will have lower pings. Not sure about faster speeds, although StarLink shouldn't run into the capability issues it's hitting on land on some places but will need it's constellation upgraded with the sat-sat links.

That said ViaSat are still launching these satellites (at quite an expense) so they must be confident there is a market post StarLink.

 

[moa999]

Some bad news leaking out around the first ViaSat 3 satellite.

Viasat stock plunges after company discloses malfunction in new satellite

Viasat disclosed its most recently launched communications satellite suffered a malfunction while deploying the reflector of its Viasat-3 Americas satellite.

www.cnbc.com

 

[henrus]

Some bad news leaking out around the first ViaSat 3 satellite.

QF banking too hard on ViaSat?

Oneweb, Starlink etc have promised/currently showing faster speeds and lower latency, perhaps they're the future?

 

[sudoer]

Oneweb, Starlink etc have promised/currently showing faster speeds and lower latency, perhaps they're the future?

I wonder how patchy those mesh networks would be on a plane. I'm guessing the constellation is designed for 100% coverage at sea level, not 40,000ft...

 

[33kft]

The risk with backing the new tech is that you will be right where the viasat 3 customers are now, but 5 years later.

Choices are to spend a lot of money on a solution that sometimes delivers what we expect but will almost certainly never go beyond that, or to take a punt on a more usable experience and hope your legal team is good at what they do.

Lots of airlines do domestic connectivity well but few have affordable/decent performance international options.

 

[henrus]

I wonder how patchy those mesh networks would be on a plane. I'm guessing the constellation is designed for 100% coverage at sea level, not 40,000ft...

JSX in the US is already using it onboard Embraer's and the reviews are impressive:

Starlink shines on JSX | PaxEx.Aero

Of course it works; this was a media demo flight, after all. But the fact that the Starlink internet service works so well on the JSX fleet was never a sure thing; the program had a few hiccups along the way. But the overall performance was impressive, and in a couple ways that were true...

paxex.aero

Starlink Flight Test: What It's Like Using SpaceX's Broadband for Inflight Wi-Fi

Regional carrier JSX is the first airline in the US to offer Starlink Wi-Fi. We tested it out on a quick roundtrip flight, and it delivered speeds competitive with 4G and sometimes even 5G.

www.pcmag.com

 

[moa999]

QF banking too hard on ViaSat?

Question is how contractually locked in they are.

I presume ViaSat wouldn't be taking risk on $1bn+ satellites without some long term contracts and presume Qantas (and other airlines and land based colustomers) have some sort of contract.

With the delays in getting the satellites built, and possibly more delays if they need to replace this one, are there any get out clauses etc

 

[moa999]

Lots of airlines do domestic connectivity well but few have affordable/decent performance international options.

Land based connectivity (particularly over US and Europe) is easier because there are so many satellites and ground stations.

Whereas not so many customers on the open sea, plus you need a much wider field to get back to a ground station or sat-sat links (as StarLink is doing over the ocean)

 

[henrus]

I presume ViaSat wouldn't be taking risk on $1bn+ satellites without some long term contracts and presume Qantas (and other airlines and land based colustomers) have some sort of contract.

100% agree although I think that could be the reason why ViaSat is coughting themselves... One would assume that contract would have some sort of requirement to deliver service by a certain time.

 

[moa999]

Seemingly more delays to ViaSat3 constellation.

Viasat preparing to start services from hobbled ViaSat-3 satellite

Viasat expects to start providing Wi-Fi to planes by the end of June from ViaSat-3 F1, the satellite that lost more than 90% of its 1 terabit per second capacity after an antenna deployment failure…

spacenews.com

Europe (F2) now pushed back to mid-2025 to ensure it doesn't have the same antenna issues
Asia (F3) still on track for late-2024 but still haven't selected a launch partner

But also comments that ViaSat might switch around some of the satellites to cover for the hobbled US (F1). Assume this will be done by merging capacity with that of Inmarsat that they recently acquired, which includes a targeted Asian (Indian Ocean) satellite.

 

[henrus]

Seemingly more delays to ViaSat3 constellation.

Viasat preparing to start services from hobbled ViaSat-3 satellite

Viasat expects to start providing Wi-Fi to planes by the end of June from ViaSat-3 F1, the satellite that lost more than 90% of its 1 terabit per second capacity after an antenna deployment failure…

spacenews.com

Europe (F2) now pushed back to mid-2025 to ensure it doesn't have the same antenna issues
Asia (F3) still on track for late-2024 but still haven't selected a launch partner

But also comments that ViaSat might switch around some of the satellites to cover for the hobbled US (F1). Assume this will be done by merging capacity with that of Inmarsat that they recently acquired, which includes a targeted Asian (Indian Ocean) satellite.

If more LEO (low earth orbit) tech is deployed with is planned then ViaSat could be facing an uphill battle contract wise. Oneweb (Amazon) is in progress with a starlink competitor which promises similar performance with low latency and high speeds, something that ViaSat can do only one of.