World-First Starlink Service on Boeing 777 Launched by Qatar Airways | Hacker News Reader

World-First Starlink Service on Boeing 777 Launched by Qatar Airways

smartwithpoints.co.uk

37 pointsjackculpan71 comments

I feel betrayed after reading the first few sentences. No human ever would write like this:

"Qatar Airways has taken the future of in-flight connectivity to greater heights by operating the world’s first Starlink-equipped Boeing 777 aircraft..."

"Qatar Airways has just made aviation history by launching the world's first Starlink-equipped Boeing 777 flight. This groundbreaking development promises to revolutionize how we stay connected at 35,000 feet. Let's dive into what this means for travellers!"

Marketing and PR humans were writing sentences like this one long before LLMs

Sure but this has the strong odor of LLM. Like, very strong.

LLM or not LLM, bullshit smells like bullshit

Somehow LLM bullshit is a step above normal bullshit because they've added an extra layer of bullshit to the bullshit.

Yeah the ultimate impact of LLMs might be the end of SEO and copywriting. Rhetoric is cool again, as in skill to convey as much meaning as possible using as little words as possible. "Content" was always a bit of a silly term: the inherent value of it is always negative (proportionate to size), offset by the new knowledge conveyed in a piece. The attention economy is collapsing right in front of our eyes.

Being on a plane used to be a safe haven where nobody could get me, email me, text me, whatever. Now there is an expectation that you can ask me to edit powerpoint from that nasty little table on the back of the economy seat any time between ten minutes from takeoff to ten minutes before touchdown - does my head in

Well, when I fly my work makes me get the cheapest possible ticket and doesn’t pay for extras like wifi.

Looks like this offering is free for all classes. United has also announced they'll be equipping their entire fleet with Starlink and it will be free for all classes as well.

Still, when I'm traveling I set the expectation that I'm only sporadically available. Not that different from normal life, actually (especially outside of working hours).

I'm confused by that move - why make it free when they could easily charge their captive audience for it? What's the next step after this one?

Next step is of course stop paying studios for movie licenses. Bring your own device and watch your own content, in 480p - bandwidth for full HD/4k is, naturally, extra.

Ultimately they might get away with ripping out the whole entertainment system out of the plane altogether for another .1% increase in efficiency.

Starlink doesn't seem to offer that much bandwidth.

they have a scarce resource - sounds like a perfect opportunity to make some money by selling it!

It's enough if you shape traffic appropriately

...and once they have ripped out the entertainment systems, then they will start charging for the internet connection again!

Strangely enough, I saw a promo on my United flight the other day that their latest cabin refreshes feature screens in every seatback. I thought airlines were going in the other direction.

making it free adds competitive pressure - other airlines might not have the available float to start adding it to theirs. This makes qatar airlines better, and thus attract more customers.

Hook. And imagine the targeted ad revenue - where else do you have people with different spending powers strapped to a seat with nowhere to go? You have already given the flight operator your verified identification. Amazing new opportunity for data resellers.

> I'm confused by that move - why make it free when they could easily charge their captive audience for it?

My understanding is that it's actually a condition of using Starlink for commercial aviation. Every other airline that's announcing a partnership with Starlink is also providing it for free to customers.

IMO, it's a way for Starlink to put pressure on other satellite internet providers. The utilization of free wifi will be way higher than paid wifi. And the other networks - be it OneWeb, Viasat, Hughesnet, etc. don't have as much available bandwidth.

Replace “being on a plane” with “being outside of the house” and you’re describing the 1980s. I’d happily give wireless everything back.

Give me my London A-Z back! A

As a kid I did something geeky that no one would need today. A compressed timetable for the train for common times of day that fits inside my wallet. For example if all day the train is 24 and 54 past the hour that is a single row.

No need for that when google maps or a trip planning app can tell you

I think I was flying with an active internet connection somewhere around 2012 (A380). So it's been like that for a good while.

Soon you’ll have to pay extra for that. “Introducing Faraday Cage Class…”

Given the reality of the Israeli pager attack using explosives planted in electronic devices, I wonder how safe anyone should feel flying on planes these days. Is airport security going to even allow electronic devices on planes in the future because of that event? What happens if a hole is blown in a pressurized cabin by such means? Supply chains are now pretty globalized and malicious actions can take place at many points in those supply chain.

Losing pressurization even suddenly isn't a huge deal by itself. The masks will drop and the plane will go to below 10000 feet but it's unlikely to cause it to crash. There's not enough explosives in the pager bombs to cause catastrophic damage to the airframe or controls.

As a side note it's unclear if it would even trigger in the air because afaik the trigger was immediate when the signal was sent and the pagers shouldn't have signal at altitude just like a cell phone.

There are other ways to trigger it, e.x. barometric pressure

For me, reliable internet on a flight turns work travel into billable hours.

Just say WiFi was broken.

> Passengers can now participate in video conferences

Short of the airplane crashing into the sea, I can’t think of much worse happening on a flight than the experience of being forced to listen to one side of someone’s Zoom meeting.

Or even worse, someone getting dumped over FaceTime.

Doubling bandwidth available to an airplane is awesome of course, but it seems like people are expecting a giant step here and not a simple doubling. It will be most noticeable in decreased latency so much better for phone calls and Zoom meetings. But the use case of 1/3 of passengers streaming video to their personal terminal seems already solved with existing satellite providers.

"Starlink delivers up to 40-220 Mbps download speed to each plane, enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time. With latency less than 99 ms, passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities."

From https://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-...

"SpaceX has revealed the official details of its Starlink satellite internet service for aviation, and it promises to deliver speeds of up to 350 Mbps for each airplane.... If Starlink Aviation can truly deliver on SpaceX's promises, that would make it a lot faster than other satellite options that only offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps per plane at most."

https://www.engadget.com/spacex-starlink-aviation-350-mbps-i...

> already solved with existing satellite providers.

From your comment I assume you have never looked into the pricing for other satellite internet with decent speeds and decent data caps.

When I drove around Africa for 3 years, the cost of even 1GB/month was going to be more than the entire expedition..

(Note: I'm talking about "satellite internet" that isn't Starlink)

Maybe the speed isn't an astronomical leap forward, but the price certainly is.

Surely these cheaper sat data rates will trickle down to cheaper tickets or cheaper inflight internet prices then...

Or now you'll get sat data wifi on flights where you previously didn't have anything.

A doubling is, in base 2, an order of magnitude. I look at 5-10% improvements as marginal and doublings as significant especially when considering you’re dealing with something as complex as a beam formed point to point communication between two fast moving objects.

What bothers me more is the discussion of people doing video calls and phone calls on a flight. My neighbor on a recent flight from nyc to seattle jumped into a zoom call from the middle seat of a 100% full flight. It was obnoxious and distracting, and a harbinger for the total collapse of the last vestiges of any form of relaxation and decorum in the sky.

Speaking as someone who has used Starlink on a Hawaiian Airlines flight, I can confidently say it’s orders of magnitude better than any in-flight WiFi I’ve used before. I ran a bunch of speed tests on a flight to Hawaii and it never dropped below 100 Mbps, averaging more like 200 Mbps.

You don’t need to trust me, just search Twitter for “Starlink Hawaiian” for lots of people with similar experiences.

https://x.com/ilyasu/status/1819781267912892714

https://x.com/alexmaxham/status/1848181680273523034

https://x.com/willarshoko/status/1849010254756892807

https://x.com/kevinrose/status/1848546935289823304

I actually like having spaces where it's expected to totally log off, so I'm not super excited.

Soon there won't be a patch of grass left in the world where you're not expected to check your email.

38.41976759715456, -79.83094757323929 Green Bank, WV - National Radio Quiet Zone. Maybe the next genration will petition the govt for areas like this.

Starlink is now certified to work thereish

The free-ness of this is completely irrelevant -- it's clear that this is a valuable service that the airlines will start pricing up in order to drive down the "bottom-line" prices on search engines, like they have done with everything else.

It's freeness is enforced by the supplier

crazy that it's free for all classes.

can't wait for it to be completely rolled out!

That's the beauty of Starlink. Its dirt cheap. And it will only get cheaper as starship can launch many more satellites per launch. We are probably not very far off of starship launching them (even if it takes them a couple years to fully work out full reusability).

But that's just step 1 of enshittification, right? Get all the frogs possible in the pot before you turn up the heat?

value extraction 101 on MBA courses

It may very well be that the US government nationalizes both Starlink and SpaceX for security reasons.

There have been quite the instances with high-profile Musk technology ending up in Russian hands (in latest news, a Cybertruck for Chechen wannabe-dictator/strongman Kadyrow), and Musk's personal ... deep dive into madness, as well as his questionably legal voter bribery, just add fuel to the fire of both companies appearing not really trustworthy under Musk's control.

Nah they're buying their own constellation (see Starshield) and installing eavesdropping equipment in the commercial downlink centers. What more could they want?

> What more could they want?

The knowledge that even if Elon Musk goes completely off-script, Starshield/Starlink/SpaceX will still be there. Right now, there is nothing stopping Musk - whose shares control 78% of the voting rights [1] - to wind down shop at his will. Maybe he'll have to pay out the other investors, but like at Twitter he may just end up sticking the finger to anyone whom the company is in debt to.

Having the future of space flight, low-latency civilian and military communication and low-orbit recon satellites all held together in the hand of one increasingly erratic billionaire is not something the US can afford to accept.

[1] https://www.keeptrack.space/deep-dive/who-owns-spacex/

You seem to think the DoD and the NSA don't have anything to say in the matter. Frankly I'd be quicker to believe men in black suits and sad faces take over the operation before Musk manages to wind it down. It's worth as a military asset is simply too great to risk a madman have complete control, regardless of how many shares he's got.

> You seem to think the DoD and the NSA don't have anything to say in the matter.

It's not like Musk has shown much respect for the law (or, let's be real, anyone other than himself) over the years, and it's only declined exponentially. Musk's history is littered with instances of breaking the law without consequences (most especially, when it comes to the SEC), why should he shy away from taking revenge should Trump lose in November? He's already stated "I'm fucked" when Harris wins, so he might as well decide to go out with one final bang.

He might think 'it can't possibly be worse' and there are three-letter agency people who will happily tell him that in fact yes, they can get much worse.

Either that or they have other contingency plans - or they're the most incompetent three letter agencies in the world.

> Either that or they have other contingency plans - or they're the most incompetent three letter agencies in the world.

It's not like the US' three-letter agencies (both national and foreign scoped) have inspired much confidence over the last decades, to be honest. Inadequate internal oversight, too many things outsourced to contractors with way too many privileges, completely fucked up contingency "plans" for a loooooooooot of crises - 9/11, the countless intifadas in Israel, the entire color revolutions and social media revolutions, Russia's/Iran's messing around everywhere for decades completely unchecked, China's industrial espionage including the F35 program, the disaster that was the retreat from Afghanistan, Trump inciting a putsch attempt claiming multiple lives, Trump getting almost shot...

The US security apparatus eats an awful lot of money and people but it regularly and spectacularly screws up.

They have their SATCOM solutions and at least 3 new ones under construction

>It may very well be that the US government nationalizes both Starlink and SpaceX for security reasons.

Don't confuse the SouthAfrikanManBad Reddit-driven fanfic in your head with reality.

>(in latest news, a Cybertruck for Chechen wannabe-dictator/strongman Kadyrow)

Really? Your example is said Chechen strongman buying an automobile, readily available on the open market, containing zero secret technology? Really?

I look forward to your prediction of the Japanese government nationalizing Toyota, because Hilux trucks are the vehicles of choice among terrorists and other warring parties around the world.

PS - If your reply contains any variant of "Musk turned off Starlink in Ukraine!", please delete your HN account immediately.

> Don't confuse the SouthAfrikanManBad Reddit-driven fanfic in your head with reality.

Musk himself has stated he's regularly using ketamine [1], and it's obvious just how hard he spiralled down in personality over the last years. I don't care much if it's ketamine, megalomania, too many children, not enough sleep, falling down conspiracy rabbit holes, barely medicated ADHD or whatever that's causing this, he's clearly not fit for the position. Dude should have went on a sabbatical after the fuck-up that forced him to buy Twitter, instead he went full steam ahead.

> Really? Your example is said Chechen strongman buying an automobile, readily available on the open market, containing zero secret technology? Really?

Considering that Russia has been on sanctions lists for over two years now, and Kadyrow since 2017 [2], there is a question how that car ended up in Kadyrow's hands despite the sanctions - and to what degree Tesla is involved or can be held liable otherwise.

> I look forward to your prediction of the Japanese government nationalizing Toyota, because Hilux trucks are the vehicles of choice among terrorists and other warring parties around the world.

There's a difference between readily available vehicles and ones that are still rare in supply.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/elon-musk-ketamine-u...

[2] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1208

There's no difference. The key question is about knowing supply. There's no question about liability. Except to people who don't understand how sanctions work and how circumvention works. Or where Dubai is. Too many children isn't a disqualifying factor. You should know better.

i.e this is Reddit fanfic

The Chechen story is absolute nonsense. You'd know if you noticed Kim Jung Un drives a BMW

It'll take some time for cheaper, at least a few years until competitors arrive in force. SpaceX's investors need to see the return on those billions invested.

...but in general, it's amazing that something impossible 4 years ago is common today, both fast satellite internet and AI - feels like a whole another age.

> at least a few years until competitors arrive in force

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will be able to compete the SpaceX on cost to orbit. Every other space company is screwed from purely a pricing perspective. Of course there are national security concerns in other countries, and R&D will continue, but commercially nobody will compete on the launch price.

If you mean just simply a Starlink competitor, that seems possible, but SpaceX can certainly launch satellites cheaper than what they will charge companies to do so. At what point does this become an anti-trust issue?

Mobile websites used to be ad free as well.

No mention in TFA of total available bandwidth for the plane?

Not sure if that actually holds true for all customers, but their public website says up to 220Mbps DL per Starlink terminal.

https://www.starlink.com/support/article/da6ca363-da23-c9dc-...

>Starlink delivers up to 40-220 Mbps download speed to each plane, enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time. With latency less than 99 ms, passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities.

I'm guessing they will severely limit the bandwidth to maybe 1-2Mbps per ticket.

I doubt anyone can stream much of anything.

Higher bandwidth in Business and First, no doubt.

There's no restrictions of the sort

The fact that it's free to the end-user seems like it would increase the number of users by enough to negate the increase in total bandwidth.

I wonder if they will go back to a fee, even a tiny one, just to limit the number of users. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

Can we get it on commuter trains as well?

Around here in the EU, most trains appear to have WiFi APs with 4G backhaul. Isn't that a more practical solution for commuter trains?

You would think, but it rarely works on UK trains. But does on the tube.

My airline of choice doesn't have any publicly released plans to upgrade their fleet like that, they are still using Boingo or whatever it's called. They still have their "no voice or video calls" over wifi rule and I hope they stick to that even if they go the way of United and Qatar and Starenshittify their fleet. It's nice to have the technology break that the small amount of friction of having to join the in-flight wifi has for a few hours when I travel by air.

No voice or video is an FAA rule. Lobbied for by industry workers. And also in legislation.

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