Internet on Flights

Internet on Flights

While recently traveling to Seattle I was fiddling with the in-flight entertainment system. Till recently I had heard about 'limited internet connectivity' on the planes, however using it for the first time got me curious. In the in-flight menu, I read about the WiFi onboard as you can see below.

I read a bit more about and found there are two ways internet is provided on airplanes -

1. Air-To-Ground (ATG): Uses antennae on the airplane that catches signal from cell towers on the ground. Intelsat is one of the providers for this. However, as you can understand the limitations of this is when planes are travelling across large bodies of water, desert or rural areas, the connectivity becomes poor.
   
   
2. Satellite-To-Plane: As the name suggests, internet connectivity is provided through satellites, which solves most of the problems that arise out of ground cell towers. However, the speed is still low as compared to terrestrial internet connectivity. Intelsat and starlink (through their low earth orbit satellites) provide this service.

Source :

1. CNN Business | How airlines give you internet access at 35,000...
2. SpeedTest - Global Index