Bring Starlink on airplane in carry on, sell access? | Hacker News Reader

Bring Starlink on airplane in carry on, sell access?

7 pointsdapookster10 comments

Hey! has anyone ever seen or considered bringing a Starlink receiver on a plane and selling access? Is this permitted? Has anyone seen this? Asking for a friend.

View on HN

My understanding is that Starlink is intolerant (in that it will occasionally lose connection when a satellite is obscured) of even light tree cover and needs line of sight to the sky over quite a wide angle. I would not expect it to work through an airplane window even if the authorities and airline permitted it.

It's not going to work through the skin of the plane. They won't service you moving at airplane speeds. Starlink sells a solution that places antennas on the exterior of the plane. How would you power it? It requires a lot of current.

Three thoughts immediately come to mind:

    1.  I'm sure there is some aviation related regulation that prohibits it.

    2.  I'm sure the airlines wouldn't be happy about the competition posed by your friend.  They must be making a tidy profit on offering WiFi on flights.

    3.  A plane being mostly aluminum is probably like a Faraday cage and satellite signals might not get in or out well.

Just tried it. It connects for a few seconds, enough to recieve messages and attachments, then it disconnects and complains about moving too fast.

Tried it with a Starlink Mini, roam subscription, and opt in Priority data turned off.

Had two 100Wh batteries with me to power it, but ended up using the plane's AC adapter since they had one.

Wanted to try it on my next flight with priority data turned on, but ended up not bothering and sleeping instead. I recall Elon tweeting about a video conference being held from his jet to an employee carrying a Starlink on a commercial flight, looking trough the window.

So the technology is there, but they probably block it to protect the netwrork from overload (same reason we put phones in airplane mode), or to charge extra for the service trough priority data or enterprise licenses.

Doesn't it use a ton of power? I've found that power outlets on planes rarely work.

I'm also pretty sure airline staff wouldn't allow you to keep a big weird electronic device on your lap (?) for the duration of the flight.

Are you able to get a signal. It takes a really long time off my balcony in SF to fix to sats and that’s with only 50% sky obscured.

Even if this was technically possible with a standard subscription, I'm curious how you'd think trying to sell access would go, how seriously you think people whom you approach would take you, etc.

Even if the signals could pass through the airplane's body, would it work when it's moving at high speed?

Yes, some airlines are using starlink to provide wifi

"Dear HN -- I was recently assaulted by flight attendants when I tried to open the plane door at 30000 feet to get the required line of sight for my Starlink connection. I was then called a wannabe Nazi by several passengers and arrested upon arrival, although my political connections of course promptly ensured all charges to be dropped. What happened to individual freedom, and would it have helped if I had taken my gun on the flight?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com