Airlines Boost In-Flight WiFi: LEO Satellite Constellation to Deliver Ground-Level Experience

Key points

• A China Eastern expert said in-flight WiFi provided by major domestic airlines meets airworthiness safety standards, as aircraft avionics and passenger WiFi have strict frequency and physical isolation, and connecting after switching to airplane mode will not interfere with navigation or communication equipment.
• Aircraft connectivity mainly uses two paths: air-to-ground communication and satellite communication. Air-to-ground is mature, lower-cost, and lower-latency, with speeds close to ground 4G, but only works where ground base stations exist.
• Satellite communication has wide coverage unrestricted by terrain or routes, but may have over half a second of latency, and satellite and bandwidth allocations differ when flying over different countries' airspace.
• Shi Yajie, chairman of CAST (Beijing) Technology Development Co., Ltd., said Chinese civil aviation aircraft mainly rely on high-orbit satellite communication, while some foreign airlines have adopted low-orbit satellite systems, which can greatly reduce latency and increase bandwidth.
• China's self-developed low-orbit satellite constellation construction is accelerating; China SatNet and Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite have each cumulatively launched more than 200 low-orbit satellites, and global constellation coverage is expected within this year.
• Since July 3 this year, China Eastern economy passengers on global wide-body flights can use standard in-flight WiFi free, while first and business class passengers get free high-speed service; Juneyao Air wide-body economy passengers get 10 minutes of free internet before charges apply.