Air NZ trialling Wi-Fi on domestic planes
Air New Zealand has started trialling wireless internet on a domestic plane using Starlink satellites.
The airline said from today, passengers flying on ZK OXE, one of its A320 domestic aircraft, would be able to access high-speed, low-latency internet, with an ATR-72 turboprop joining the trial later this month - a world first.
It said Wi-Fi would be provided free of charge during the trial, with passengers able to browse, access social media, stream or play games.
Starlink - owned by billionaire Elon Musk's company SpaceX - uses low Earth orbit satellites to provide internet coverage across the world.
"Being the first airline in the world to trial Wi-Fi on a turboprop aircraft is a proud moment for us, Air New Zealand chief digital officer Nikhil Ravishankar said.
"Our goal is to explore the potential of this technology and understand how it can enhance customer journeys."
Air New Zealand said it was in the testing phase of Starlink's onboard connectivity and sought to understand how it performed in real-world conditions, while gathering customer feedback.
"[Customer] feedback will help guide our decision-making as we consider connectivity options for our domestic fleet," Ravishankar said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Queenstown airport's amazing 90-year flight path
In 1935, when the tiny Queenstown airfield was licensed to become an aerodrome, who'd have projected its growth over the following 90 years? In the first of a two-part series, Philip Chandler provides an overview of how it's become New Zealand's fourth busiest airport, tracking key milestones including controversy over its ownership. Next Thursday marks Queenstown Airport's 90th anniversary as a licensed airfield, however the first plane landed four years earlier, on January 4, 1931. A large crowd watched an NZ Airways Simmonds Spartan biplane land in the Frankton racecourse, with deputy mayor Bill Anderson officially welcoming Captain Trevor 'Tiny' White. A newspaper report said the racecourse "will probably be known in future years as the Queenstown airport", and noted nearby farmer Mr J.E. O'Connell had "harrowed a piece of ground especially for the landing". For a time the airfield also doubled as a golf course with golfers stopping play to let planes land. The first regular service from 1938 was the Wigley family's Queenstown-Mount Cook Airways — today's airport entrance is Sir Henry Wigley Dr. However, as a forerunner of Covid's effect on the operation, the airfield closed during World War 2 to become a Queenstown Home Guard training ground. After the war, several ex-WW2 pilots formed Southern Scenic Air Services, adding Milford to their scenic flights when its airstrip opened in 1952. In 1964, Mount Cook Airlines was licensed to fly in DC-3s, triggering the first terminal build and the lengthening of the grass runway. In 1968 the new Hawker Siddeley turboprops saw the runway and apron sealed. Former mayor Sir John Davies — whose late dad Bill managed Mount Cook Airline's light aircraft division from the airport— recalls passengers and their luggage being weighed at the airline's Rees St office, from where they were bussed directly to the plane for boarding. By '74, however, a new terminal had check-in facilities. At the time the airport was owned 60% by the three local councils — later amalgamated into Queenstown Lakes District Council — and 40% by the government. In '88, when the government was shedding assets, then-mayor Davies' QLDC bought the government's share for $3million, becoming the country's only council to own an airport outright — Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC) was set up to run it. Davies also announced the board aimed to introduce jet services. "Within an hour, Christchurch Airport chairman Morgan Fahey rang me and said, 'young man, you don't understand aviation, you'll never get a jet into Queenstown'." That was proven wrong when Ansett NZ started a BAe 146 'whisper jet' service in '89 and Air NZ followed with Boeing jets in '92, hushkitted to soften their noise after a number of locals had campaigned against their introduction. In 1995, Air NZ introduced the first direct flight to Australia to turn the former airfield into a fully fledged international airport. Davies, who also had stints as QAC's chairman, says he also got airlines to agree to higher landing fees to fund terminal expansion, as sometimes passengers waited 45 minutes on the tarmac before using congested baggage and Customs areas. To his shock, QAC in 2010, with council support, sold 24.9% of the company to Auckland International Airport for $27.7m, claiming it would benefit from that airport's expertise and strategic connections. Davies was part of a Queenstown group who invested $365,000 in a legal battle to prevent the move, however there was an 11th-hour agreement whereby Auckland placed a lid on its shareholding — it had wanted an option to lift its stake to 50%. He estimates the airport's now worth about a billion dollars, "so what they sold for $27m would today be worth $250m". The sell-off also saw Queenstown's council foregoing 24.9% of all future dividends from the airport. Meantime, ZQN's continued expanding hugely — between 1995 and 2018, QAC invested $120m-plus in capital expenditure including four terminals, two control towers and six runway upgrades or extensions. In 2012, required navigation performance (RNP) technology greatly improved the reliability of jet services. Then in 2016 came another game-changer — the introduction of night flights, till 10pm, which spread the airport's operating hours. Improvements to pave the way for night flights cost about $20m. Today the airport's the fourth busiest in NZ and the only one, so far, to have jumped ahead of pre-Covid passenger numbers. And what used to be an airfield 'out of town', surrounded by Frankton Flats farmland, is now slap-bang in the midst of the Whakatipu Basin's main commercial and residential hub.
Scoop
2 days ago
- Scoop
Download Weekly: Amazon's Project Kuiper looms closer
Article – Bill Bennett Australias NBN Co to offer Amazon satellite broadband next year Amazon satellite launch. Australias NBN Co plans to wholesale Amazon satellite broadband from the middle of 2026. The state-owned broadband provider says it will use Project Kuiper … Australia's NBN Co to offer Amazon satellite broadband next year Australia's NBN Co plans to wholesale Amazon satellite broadband from the middle of 2026. The state-owned broadband provider says it will use Project Kuiper satellites to deliver services to regional, rural, and remote areas of Australia. Project Kuiper could be live elsewhere well before that date. A post on the About Amazon website says the company expects its first commercial customers to connect before the end of this year. NBN Co already uses geostationary Sky Muster satellites to service around 75,000 remote users. These satellites are expected to stop working early next decade, so a replacement was needed. There was speculation that NBN Co would cut a deal with SpaceX to use its Starlink network, but it chose Amazon instead. Or as the Sydney Morning Herald put it: ' NBN Co snubs Musk, inks satellite deal with Bezos' Amazon '. (The story is behind a paywall.) Faster, lower latency A press release on the NBN Co website says Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites will offer faster broadband with lower latency than the existing service. Amazon plans a constellation of 3,200 satellites. A launch last week took the total satellites in orbit up to 78. The company has a busy launch schedule with at least 80 more rocket launches this year. It's not clear how many satellites will be in orbit by the time the NBN Co service begins. When Starlink first offered commercial services, it only had around 700 satellites in orbit. Amazon should have more than that by the end of the year. New Zealand in Project Kuiper plans While there is nothing official about the company's New Zealand plans, Amazon has a country manager, Joe Lathan, for Australia and New Zealand overseeing its Project Kuiper activities. Last year, Amazon got permission to build a satellite ground station in New Zealand. It also acquired transmission licences. To date, there have been no official reports of discussions between Amazon and NZ telecoms companies, although Download Weekly understands some talks have taken place. Likewise, there is no information yet about the cost of an Amazon satellite service or the home equipment needed to communicate with the satellites. Fierce competition with Starlink Amazon's deal with NBN Co is significant, but around 300,000 Australians already have satellite broadband accounts with Starlink. Point Topic reports that Australia is SpaceX's fourth largest market. The deal is not exclusive. Amazon will be able to sell directly to Australian customers. Although New Zealand is a smaller market than Australia, a greater proportion of NZ rural people rely on satellite broadband than in any other nation. With most of the low-hanging fruit now picked, Amazon may struggle to dislodge Starlink unless it has something significant to offer in addition to connectivity or if it can compete on price. Although Amazon has home users in its sights, the company has worked to integrate its satellite network with its network of AWS cloud data centres. This gives it an enterprise offering that can also be used by government departments and emergency services. N4L managed network upgrades one-third completed Network for Learning (N4L) says around a third of schools now have next-generation internet infrastructure. The project aims to deliver faster, safer, and more secure digital learning networks. It also means schools can use N4L as a virtual ISP. The upgrade will see schools replace firewalls and switch to a new internet connection. The project is due to complete before the middle of 2026. N4L CEO Larrie Moore says: 'All schools, big or small, urban or rural, will be able to have access to enterprise-grade internet and cybersecurity, ensuring high-quality, fit-for-purpose digital services that best support modern teaching and learning. This hard mahi is allowing schools to concentrate on what matters most: teaching and learning.' ComCom publishes draft fibre information disclosure review The Commerce Commission has published a draft framework paper for its fibre information disclosure review. The main change is that the regulator wants to include a new disclosure requirement for the report on broadband quality. While this could mean more paperwork for the fibre companies, it mainly covers information that is already collected each month. They would need to complete a publicly disclosed report on fibre quality. The thinking behind this is that it would speed up comparisons of quality between the regulated providers. There is a recognition that the 100 Mbps up, 20 Mbps down benchmark bitstream service required since the regime was first introduced is now out of date. In future, 300/100 Mbps will be the reference service. Another change is a switch from using internally generated fault reports to customer-generated fault reports for future monitoring of downtime. New Zealand's fibre information disclosure regime applies to Chorus and the three local fibre companies: Northpower, Enable, and Tuatahi. Tū Ātea adds board members George Reedy, Callum Kātene and Sheree Ryan have been appointed to the Tū Ātea board of directors by the Māori Spectrum Working Group. They join Robin Hapi, Haami Piripi, Elle Archer and Mike Jenkins. Reedy was previously the chief executive of Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou. Kātene is the founder of Ātea Systems Ltd, a specialist telecoms software development company. Ryan works as a CFO and was the first Māori appointed to the External Reporting Board (XRB). Tū Ātea is the Māori spectrum and telecoms company behind New Zealand's first private 5G network. It also works to build better communications networks in underserved regions. In other news… The National Emergency Management Agency is moving—Interest. What is happening to the E mergency services mobile radio network? — Reseller News. A clever new use for old pay phones — NPR. Cert is gone – Who picks up the phone now? — ITP Techblog End of transmission: New Zealand is a leading space nation Auckland University Physics professor Richard Easther notes New Zealand is number three in the worldwide league table for orbital launches behind the US and China. That's an achievement. Yet, as Easter points out, on the per capita basis that we love to use, New Zealand has more orbital launches than anyone else. We can take this further. Last year's Commerce Commission Telecommunications Monitoring report found New Zealand had 57,000 Starlink accounts. The number will be higher today. That's about one percent of the population. Or 10,000 accounts per million population. In comparison, the US has 2,900 accounts per million. Canada has 500 per million. Australia has around 7,500. Which means we don't only hold the crown for the highest per capita number of rocket launches, we're the highest per capita satellite broadband user. Five years ago: $50 million for shovel-ready networks Infrastructure minister Shane Jones and communications minister Kris Faafoi set aside $50 million for projects to push modern networks further into regional areas. The TCF issued a report showing the success of telecoms networks during the early stages of the pandemic while warning the companies were not making enough of a return on their investments. Meanwhile, the UFB network signed up its millionth account. Are you enjoying the Download Weekly? Feel free to pass this email on to your colleagues. The Download Weekly is supported by Chorus New Zealand. Amazon's Project Kuiper looms closer was first posted at
Scoop
2 days ago
- Scoop
Download Weekly: Amazon's Project Kuiper looms closer
Australia's NBN Co to offer Amazon satellite broadband next year Australia's NBN Co plans to wholesale Amazon satellite broadband from the middle of 2026. The state-owned broadband provider says it will use Project Kuiper satellites to deliver services to regional, rural, and remote areas of Australia. Project Kuiper could be live elsewhere well before that date. A post on the About Amazon website says the company expects its first commercial customers to connect before the end of this year. NBN Co already uses geostationary Sky Muster satellites to service around 75,000 remote users. These satellites are expected to stop working early next decade, so a replacement was needed. There was speculation that NBN Co would cut a deal with SpaceX to use its Starlink network, but it chose Amazon instead. Or as the Sydney Morning Herald put it: ' NBN Co snubs Musk, inks satellite deal with Bezos' Amazon '. (The story is behind a paywall.) Faster, lower latency A press release on the NBN Co website says Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites will offer faster broadband with lower latency than the existing service. Amazon plans a constellation of 3,200 satellites. A launch last week took the total satellites in orbit up to 78. The company has a busy launch schedule with at least 80 more rocket launches this year. It's not clear how many satellites will be in orbit by the time the NBN Co service begins. When Starlink first offered commercial services, it only had around 700 satellites in orbit. Amazon should have more than that by the end of the year. New Zealand in Project Kuiper plans While there is nothing official about the company's New Zealand plans, Amazon has a country manager, Joe Lathan, for Australia and New Zealand overseeing its Project Kuiper activities. Last year, Amazon got permission to build a satellite ground station in New Zealand. It also acquired transmission licences. To date, there have been no official reports of discussions between Amazon and NZ telecoms companies, although Download Weekly understands some talks have taken place. Likewise, there is no information yet about the cost of an Amazon satellite service or the home equipment needed to communicate with the satellites. Fierce competition with Starlink Amazon's deal with NBN Co is significant, but around 300,000 Australians already have satellite broadband accounts with Starlink. Point Topic reports that Australia is SpaceX's fourth largest market. The deal is not exclusive. Amazon will be able to sell directly to Australian customers. Although New Zealand is a smaller market than Australia, a greater proportion of NZ rural people rely on satellite broadband than in any other nation. With most of the low-hanging fruit now picked, Amazon may struggle to dislodge Starlink unless it has something significant to offer in addition to connectivity or if it can compete on price. Although Amazon has home users in its sights, the company has worked to integrate its satellite network with its network of AWS cloud data centres. This gives it an enterprise offering that can also be used by government departments and emergency services. N4L managed network upgrades one-third completed Network for Learning (N4L) says around a third of schools now have next-generation internet infrastructure. The project aims to deliver faster, safer, and more secure digital learning networks. It also means schools can use N4L as a virtual ISP. The upgrade will see schools replace firewalls and switch to a new internet connection. The project is due to complete before the middle of 2026. N4L CEO Larrie Moore says: "All schools, big or small, urban or rural, will be able to have access to enterprise-grade internet and cybersecurity, ensuring high-quality, fit-for-purpose digital services that best support modern teaching and learning. This hard mahi is allowing schools to concentrate on what matters most: teaching and learning.' ComCom publishes draft fibre information disclosure review The Commerce Commission has published a draft framework paper for its fibre information disclosure review. The main change is that the regulator wants to include a new disclosure requirement for the report on broadband quality. While this could mean more paperwork for the fibre companies, it mainly covers information that is already collected each month. They would need to complete a publicly disclosed report on fibre quality. The thinking behind this is that it would speed up comparisons of quality between the regulated providers. There is a recognition that the 100 Mbps up, 20 Mbps down benchmark bitstream service required since the regime was first introduced is now out of date. In future, 300/100 Mbps will be the reference service. Another change is a switch from using internally generated fault reports to customer-generated fault reports for future monitoring of downtime. New Zealand's fibre information disclosure regime applies to Chorus and the three local fibre companies: Northpower, Enable, and Tuatahi. Tū Ātea adds board members George Reedy, Callum Kātene and Sheree Ryan have been appointed to the Tū Ātea board of directors by the Māori Spectrum Working Group. They join Robin Hapi, Haami Piripi, Elle Archer and Mike Jenkins. Reedy was previously the chief executive of Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou. Kātene is the founder of Ātea Systems Ltd, a specialist telecoms software development company. Ryan works as a CFO and was the first Māori appointed to the External Reporting Board (XRB). Tū Ātea is the Māori spectrum and telecoms company behind New Zealand's first private 5G network. It also works to build better communications networks in underserved regions. In other news... The National Emergency Management Agency is moving—Interest. What is happening to the E mergency services mobile radio network? — Reseller News. A clever new use for old pay phones — NPR. Cert is gone – Who picks up the phone now? — ITP Techblog End of transmission: New Zealand is a leading space nation Auckland University Physics professor Richard Easther notes New Zealand is number three in the worldwide league table for orbital launches behind the US and China. That's an achievement. Yet, as Easter points out, on the per capita basis that we love to use, New Zealand has more orbital launches than anyone else. We can take this further. Last year's Commerce Commission Telecommunications Monitoring report found New Zealand had 57,000 Starlink accounts. The number will be higher today. That's about one percent of the population. Or 10,000 accounts per million population. In comparison, the US has 2,900 accounts per million. Canada has 500 per million. Australia has around 7,500. Which means we don't only hold the crown for the highest per capita number of rocket launches, we're the highest per capita satellite broadband user. Five years ago: $50 million for shovel-ready networks Infrastructure minister Shane Jones and communications minister Kris Faafoi set aside $50 million for projects to push modern networks further into regional areas. The TCF issued a report showing the success of telecoms networks during the early stages of the pandemic while warning the companies were not making enough of a return on their investments. Meanwhile, the UFB network signed up its millionth account. Are you enjoying the Download Weekly? Feel free to pass this email on to your colleagues. Have your say. If you're a subscriber, you can comment on any newsletter or story on the website. Just scroll to the bottom of the page. Reader emails are also welcome. The Download Weekly is supported by Chorus New Zealand. Amazon's Project Kuiper looms closer was first posted at Bill Bennett Freelance journalist. Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers. His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast. Bennett's The Download Weekly here. If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.
