ICAO Viasat WiFi Speed: How Fast is the Connection on Planes?
If you have to travel by flight often, then the speed and reliability of in-flight WiFi are probably a necessity for you. At present, Viasat is a leading provider of satellite internet connectivity to several major carriers in the United States. Well, the real question lies in asking exactly how quickly is their inflight WiFi service. In this post, we’ll provide a comprehensive look into Viasat inflight internet speeds and service performance.
Viasat’s Inflight WiFi Service: An Overview
Aig Viasat offers its Ka-Band satellite-based WiFi services to several airlines, including United Airlines, American Airlines, and JetBlue. This gives airplane passengers the ability to browse the internet with connection speed comparable to that of a fast DSL at home, which puts it in a class above earlier generations of extremely slow airplane WiFi. They may be able to offer this improved performance because they use newer-generation Ka-Band satellites in comparison to other inflight WiFi providers who are still using the older satellites. This, in turn, enables airplanes to be assigned much more bandwidth than before.
Understanding the Average Speeds You Can Expect through Viasat
Viasat’s marketing campaign includes depicting average speeds on enabled aircraft as being in the 12–20 Mbps range. To provide a point of comparison, a common 4K video stream would need approximately 20–25 Mbps of bandwidth to operate. The real-world tests and usage of frequent travelers in locations show that the average speeds generally fall within the 10–20 Mbps range. Therefore, streaming standard-definition video and web browsing should not present much of a problem. However, higher-resolution video streams may often take a long time to start playing or may start playing at lower quality. Download speeds average 5 Mbps, and upload speeds average around 3–5 Mbps, which provides moderate browsing usage. In conclusion, though not blazingly fast, Viasat WiFi is an immense leap ahead of the abovementioned airplane WiFi generations. While it supports a moderate number of users per plane for streaming, browsing the Internet, VPN access, and other needs, it represents a suitable inflight WiFi solution.
Affecting speeds and performance.
Thus, during periods of peak time, average speeds may reach 12–20 Mbps; however, certain factors may decrease airborne performance. The most significant factors are: The most significant factors are:
1. Number of simultaneously connected users: This is a factor of the number of users in that a large number of users will reduce the bandwidth per user.
2. Cabinetry, cabin walls, and other physical installations may cause minor impediments when it comes to propagating a signal.
3. Geophysical effects: Distance from the satellite may be affected by thunderstorms or dense cloud layers.
In general, the system is stable and offers a good quality of experience during good weather; however, scattered/dense storms along the flight path can negatively affect connection speeds for a temporary period. Nonetheless, it is important to note that Viasat in general offers a rather significant performance increase compared to prior WiFi access.
Conclusion
Airplane WiFi over satellites by Viasat stretches from 10–20 Mbps on average on flights with major airlines in the United States, including JetBlue, United, and American Airlines. This makes it possible to have a basic browsing and streaming experience at a fairly reasonable rate, depending on the number of users per flight. This puts it on par with slightly above-par home internet over cable or DSL broadly, which is a drastic improvement over previous plane internet generations. This makes productivity, video streaming, VPN connections, and other internal uses of the internet far more reliable during the flight.