The Streaming Wars Are Taking to the Skies
📖 Full Retelling
Airlines like United are bringing high-speed internet to planes through Starlink, and reimagining in-flight entertainment in the process.
Entity Intersection Graph
No entity connections available yet for this article.
Original Source
Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Earlier this week, I woke up my phone and opened the YouTube app, watching some sports highlights, before switching to Netflix and finishing an old episode of Arrested Development . It was wholly unremarkable, save for the fact that we were cruising at 32,000 feet. United Airlines is in the midst of installing Starlink internet across its fleet, and this was a demo flight, meant to demonstrate how the SpaceX-powered satellite internet service can deliver broadband as fast as you can get at home, even when cruising at 580 miles per hour six miles above the earth. But United’s push to bring free high-speed internet to its aircraft also underscores what will become a new reality as other airlines follow: The streaming wars will soon take to the skies. Flyers, once limited to what was licensed on the seatback screens (assuming they were even on a plane that had them), will soon be able to bring their own entertainment, be it TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, or Fortnite. And airlines are going to adapt accordingly. “It’s about optionality,” says Andrew Nocella, United’s executive VP and chief commercial officer, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter while standing under the tail of one of the airline’s new 787-9 aircraft. “What we have found is that Starlink just means there’s another way to connect. So there’s people that want to watch the seatback as they connect with their cell phone to text, as they connect with their iPad to do some work.” United, he adds, is developing new approaches to entertainment that will combine the high-speed internet access to its seatback screens, which are being upgraded on its newer planes with larger screens and 4K video. “There’s going to be a lot more that we can do with Starlink and our seat back systems in the future...
Read full article at source