Qantas starts international wifi

[SYD]

Did I read somewhere that Greg Norman not a fan of lack of WiFi on QF?

Peaked too soon.

Personally, I’d paid to see some entitled **** to meltdown with no wifi for 14 hrs.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Serious Q - no WiFi on QFI? I have zero knowledge as my MD has banned me from flying QF

SQ’s is so painfully slow but sometimes it works

 

[SYD]

Serious Q - no WiFi on QFI? I have zero knowledge as my MD has banned me from flying QF

SQ’s is so painfully slow but sometimes it works

No, incorrect. There’s wifi on the majority QFi fleet now, just the A380s to go - hence the earlier post announcing the first baby bump on a QF A380.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Sorry I missed earlier post - I never check QF threads

So does the WiFi work ok on Intl routes?

Edit - So was his rant accurate? No WiFi or just slow WiFi?

On the whole WiFi topic - I don’t get it - 50 years ago we allegedly sent men to the moon and streamed live video back - fast forward 50 years and we struggle to get a signal to 35K feet?

 

[SYD]

Sorry I missed earlier post - I never check QF threads

There’s life beyond SQ.

So does the WiFi work ok on Intl routes?

Yes, of course!

Edit - So was his rant accurate? No WiFi or just slow WiFi?

Yes, no wifi on his specific QF A380 flight. But it’s coming and apparently only 9 of 10 aircraft to get the bump.

On the whole WiFi topic - I don’t get it - 50 years ago we allegedly sent men to the moon and streamed live video back - fast forward 50 years and we struggle to get a signal to 35K feet?

Completely different tech but obviously the main issue is what and how an airline rolls out wifi.

Some sort of connectivity is not exactly new, most US airlines provided in flight phone calls as early as the ‘80s. But as soon as some exec made a call, their company share price tanked…

 

[elanshin]

Sorry I missed earlier post - I never check QF threads

So does the WiFi work ok on Intl routes?

Edit - So was his rant accurate? No WiFi or just slow WiFi?

To be more specific - QF for most of the fleet now has blazed past SQ speeds for wifi (At least until SQ properly installs Starlink). With the commercial commence of service Viasat 3 for APAC (Sep 2026), it can now do speeds around 50-80mbs. It's not starlink speeds, but good enough for most use cases on board including 4k streaming.

On the Intl Front, all b787 (14/14) are done, on the a330 fleet, theres 2(3?) Finnair planes that aren't done and QPA-QPD are not wifi equipped (rumors are they have only a few months of life left in the frames). All other a330s are done (~20/26ish hard to tell exactly how many are active flying right now). 1st a380 got the wifi bump.
So the majority of the fleet has it, but it's missing on the flagship routes.

On the domestic front, QFd still has some a320 and smaller QLink they need to install on (not sure if they'll ever do the dash 8s though). Almost all b737 have it (I believe the 4 they acquired from SQ might not be done). Service done by NBN Skymuster still.

On the whole WiFi topic - I don’t get it - 50 years ago we allegedly sent men to the moon and streamed live video back - fast forward 50 years and we struggle to get a signal to 35K feet?

Sending a signal over the horizon at a fast moving plane from the ground isn't really a feasible solution so the only way is to do it from space.

It is partly a technological challenge as well as a cost challenge. The actual physics of sending a signal out and receiving it back isn't necessarily difficult. The problems was to send up satelites into geostationary orbits that had the equipment to do it reliably. Then as the internet age kicked off, the requirements for bandwith was growing so rapidly but rocket launch techonology moved at a snails pace.

It's really Elon and SpaceX that completely changed the equation on all of this. Without Falcon9 and SpaceX's (at the time) insane idea to reuse rocket boosters, the cost per kg for launches would've never really come down to the levels they're at now. Which would've meant something like starlink would've never been feasible commercially. All of which happned over the last 10 years (First Falcon 9 successful landing was Dec 2015).

 

[moa999]

And the earliest systems in the US were air to ground, later air to GEO.
Historically most GEO satellites have been focussed on land masses, where they can make money.
Qantas is quite unique flying mostly sea based routes.

Remember Qantas first trialled Wifi on the A380s back in 2012 and it was rather mediocre - 35 MB limits! And removed fairly quickly.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/hands-on-review-qantas-airbus-a380-in-flight-wifi-internet-trials

With hindsight they probably should have waited a few more years for Elon, rather than signing with the continuously delayed ViaSat3, but as elanshin notes the actual product is pretty decent.