{"id":54535,"date":"2022-10-20T17:40:22","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T09:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-jumps-into-competitive-ifc-market-with-new-starlink-aviation-service\/"},"modified":"2022-10-20T17:40:22","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T09:40:22","slug":"spacex-jumps-into-competitive-ifc-market-with-new-starlink-aviation-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-jumps-into-competitive-ifc-market-with-new-starlink-aviation-service\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Jumps into Competitive IFC Market with New Starlink Aviation Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The era of Starlink Aviation<\/strong> is now here. SpaceX<\/strong> has made no secret of its desire to become a major player in the IFC market, and has now taken the next step by unveiling Starlink Aviation.<\/p>\n

SpaceX revealed that Starlink Aviation will be able to deliver up to 350 Mbps to each plane, enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time. It says with latency as low as 20 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. Starlink\u2019s low-profile aero terminal features an electronically steered phased array antenna, which it says enables new levels of reliability, redundancy and performance.<\/p>\n

Starlink, a SpaceX company, has already signed deals with the likes of Hawaiian Airlines, but over the next year, it is clearly targeting a lot more. But, now its Internet service for aircraft has a new name. It is targeting both the business aviation and commercial aviation market.<\/p>\n

So, what do leading industry analysts\u2019 make of this? Daniel Welch, Co-Founder and Senior Consultant, The Valour Consultancy told Via Satellite<\/em>, \u201cSLAs are moving away from Mbps to the aircraft and toward Mbps to the seat as airlines look to focus on improving the experience for every passenger that accesses the onboard Wi-Fi service. The figures quoted from SpaceX are undoubtedly impressive but I\u2019d hope to see commitments made to the seat level over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vishal Patil, IFEC Consultant, Euroconsult told Via Satellite<\/em> that he thought the launch of Starlink Aviation would be perceived with \u201cmixed reactions\u201d. While he says some stakeholders may feel cheered by 350 Mbps per aircraft news, for others, it might be too early to absorb it all, he said. Patil added that there are still a lot of uncertainties revolving around the news. \u201cThe first and most important one is to understand how Starlink without the inter-satellite links on its first-generation satellites is promoting 20 ms and global coverage (including over the oceans),\u201d he said. \u201cIt is also important to understand the meaning of up to 350 Mbps per aircraft, whether as a committed bandwidth or minimum bandwidth? Today, the veteran players in the market have a set path and an installed base. Their services are flight-proven. On the other hand, Starlink is in its nascent stages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Farrar, President, TMF Associates told Via Satellite that he believes it is far from clear cut that Starlink will gets lots of business, and that there are potential plenty of obstacles ahead. Farrar believes this announcement does indicate equipment pricing without installation, suggesting that airlines\u2019 requirements for installation and support may end up being a sticking point. Farrar added, \u201cThat\u2019s particularly the case when airlines can\u2019t easily change out equipment if Starlink changes tack at short notice. Starlink has recently signed deals with service providers like Marlink and Speedcast in order to address precisely these issues of customer support in the maritime and enterprise segments. So, the key question is whether Starlink still intends to go it alone in aviation, or will now sign similar deals in that segment. And if so, who with?\u201d<\/p>\n

Brent Prokosh, Senior Consultant, Euroconsult added, \u201cThe new offering is squarely aimed at the upper-end of the business aviation market (where sensitivity to price is likely lower). While Starlink\u2019s peak speeds of 350 Mbps are almost 10x higher than current high-end satellite offerings in the segment, the monthly fees are significantly higher than market averages for both Air-to-Ground (ATG) and satellite (VSAT) solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

When speaking at the Connected Aviation Intelligence event in June, Starlink Vice President of Commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller said current in-flight internet services powered by Geostationary (GEO) satellites will not be able to keep up with the connectivity demands of airline passengers, particularly younger consumers.<\/p>\n

When determining SpaceX\u2019s ability to compete in the airline market, Valour\u2019s Welch noted, \u201cThere is certainly a great deal of interest in Starlink Aviation, both from airlines and the competition. I\u2019d expect to see carriers wait to see how the service performs on launch customers, Hawaiian and JSX, but it\u2019s really only a matter of time before we see SpaceX increase its share of the IFC installed base. Domination is a strong word \u2013 line-fit offerability is becoming more important and there\u2019s already a lot of aircraft with IFC hardware installed and it\u2019s hard to justify removing it for most carriers. But the major incumbents will now be up against a disruptor competing strongly on price and brand appeal \u2013 it\u2019s going to make for an interesting few years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patil is also unsure on whether Starlink will dominate this market. He says, \u201cWith multiple operators and service providers joining hands together and marching towards multi-orbit, multi-frequency solutions along with equipment manufacturers supporting the idea with the latest development efforts in the same direction, it is most likely be the future with LEO, MEO, and GEO solutions co-existing and serving the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, considering what we are seeing in the market with Intelsat\/Gogo, Inmarsat\/Viasat, how many players could play in this market as it develops this decade. Welch says, \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the market moving into the networks of three vendors, two of which are in the process of merging. I\u2019d argue we\u2019ll see a handful of vendors continue to compete for airline customers in the commercial aviation space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hofeller said aviation is a potentially significant market for LEO-driven internet services that Starlink is actively targeting, noting that beyond the Hawaiian and JSX contracts are \u201cseveral more [airline agreements] in the works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starlink Aviation will have global coverage. SpaceX says that since the satellites are moving in LEO, there are always satellites overhead or nearby to provide a strong signal at high latitudes and in polar regions \u2013 unlike with GEO satellites. Service will be available in-flight over land and water and on the ground during taxi, take-off, and landing. As long as the equipment is powered on and the Starlink has an unobstructed view of the sky, connection is possible. Starlink aims to start deliveries of the service to airlines and bizjet operators in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The era of Starlink Aviation is now here. SpaceX has made no secret of its desire to become a major player in the IFC market, and has now taken the next step by unveiling Starlink Aviation. SpaceX revealed that Starlink Aviation will be able to deliver up to 350 Mbps to each plane, enabling all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}