OneWeb successfully tests airplane wi-fi using its satellites
Capitalism in space: During an eleven hour test flight, OneWeb has successfully tested the use of its satellite constellation to provide wi-fi service during long international flights.
Flight tests will continue throughout the rest of this year, with certification of the Sidewinder terminal expected in mid-2023. OneWeb expects to launch its new service in the middle of next year. It has so far launched about two-thirds of its 648-strong constellation of satellites.
This puts the OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink constellation in direct competition, since both will be offering this service directly to airlines. Thus, for both the airlines and their customers, this competition will likely not only lower price, it will improve service.
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Capitalism in space: During an eleven hour test flight, OneWeb has successfully tested the use of its satellite constellation to provide wi-fi service during long international flights.
Flight tests will continue throughout the rest of this year, with certification of the Sidewinder terminal expected in mid-2023. OneWeb expects to launch its new service in the middle of next year. It has so far launched about two-thirds of its 648-strong constellation of satellites.
This puts the OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink constellation in direct competition, since both will be offering this service directly to airlines. Thus, for both the airlines and their customers, this competition will likely not only lower price, it will improve service.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I read an article the other day that one of those tv satellite companies is complaining to the FCC (Or one of those Federal departments with letters for a name) that Starlink does not have a permit to allow people to receive its signal in a moving vehicle. And that they know people are driving down the road in their campers and getting the internet and they should police this. I guess they can go after one web now too unless they don’t have control of vehicles over 10,000 feet. I am not sure why the tv company would care, but I assume somewhere it is about dollars and cents. Ah, here it is. Read for you self as I am a fast and poor reader and may have gotten something wrong.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/dish-demands-spacex-deactivate-starlink-dishes-used-on-moving-boats-and
Dish Network’s last cries. Vessels are using Starlink, I am sure they get away with it since most of those cruiseline vessels are under a foreign flag.
“Sidewinder” may not have been the best choice for a terminal mounted in an airplane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
Andi,
Yes, that is true, but I am willing to bet you a Coke that the programmers probably never heard of that and named it after that awful movie “Snakes on a Plane”.