Originally Posted by
LAX_AUS_DL_FLYER
Alright, that's enough. Let's not try to one up each other on how much of a dork we can be ;-)
In that case, I'm surprised no one has talked the new LEO/MEO satellite constellations will transform everything. OneWeb, O3b, StarLink, Project Kuiper et all have raised dozens of billions of dollars to bring fast inexpensive global internet. The amount of available satellite internet bandwidth will grow exponentially in the next decade...and remember airlines tend to plan equipment upgrades with a cadence of five or ten years.
To be honest I think the real impact will not be on in-flight wifi, but distributed work so people can life where the quality of life is high. My in-laws live in a beautiful part of rural Wisconsin that only received functional (i.e. 10mbps uncapped for less than $100/mo) satellite broadband last year.
Also---and, not to be pedantic, but if the issue is the current network capacity, why not simply add more antennas? If 50% of 200 passengers need 10mbps, that's 1 gbps of backhaul. Today Exede offers 60mbps/transponder so that's 1gbps/60mbps=16 2/3 transponders, so say 17. Now that many antennas might impact fuel burn, but my point is that fast inflight wifi is technically possible today despite probably not making economic sense.