A new ViaSat-3 satellite that launched this weekend will soon make in-flight Wi-Fi just as fast and reliable as the internet on the ground.
Likely in its final position in June or July, the satellite will connect to over 2,000 planes worldwide, offering Wi-Fi services to those currently 20,000 feet in the air.
American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue, and United all use ViaSat satellites for many of their in-flight Wi-Fi options, but the reliability and bandwidth are limited.
Yet, JetBlue does offer free Wi-Fi on all of its planes due to the satellite network. Southwest has even promised to transition to offering free Wi-Fi as part of its $2 billion upgrade.
The ViaSat-3 satellite has the highest capacity ever built, able to deliver over one terabit per second of throughput capacity. It can even move capacity to direct the strength of the signal during peak times in certain time zones.
The Americas will be the first region to experience the higher-capacity internet.
But ViaSat-3 does face some competition from Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has the ability to host Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls and will be installed on Hawaiian Airlines planes soon.
Featured image from Pexels, photo credit Pixabay, second image from Viasat Inc.
