I'd rather expect it to be first sold to high frequency traders. HFT firms have paid astronomical amounts to shave milliseconds off of their connection times.
Which is why I would expect them to already have better-latency options than going to space and back. Does anyone even bother setting up an HFT firm outside fiber range of a major exchange?
Considering how hard it is to get a cell signal inside a plane on the ground, and that these will require special CPE, and the airlines can't change the equipment on a plane without a ruling by the FAA, I wouldn't bet on it.
Onboard internet provided by ground-based cellular or satellite already requires aftermarket hardware -- external antennas, routers inside the plane, and more.
It does require extensive testing and permission by the FAA (and the aircraft manufacturer, and the airline, and others) and extensive support teams in terminals but it's done semi-routinely.
not easy inside a faraday cage. In fact, how does spaceX plan to deliver the internet? Would people need access to a roof antenna? That rules out a lot of use cases
What is the last time you traveled on an airplane? In flight wifi is pretty routine now, aircraft have lots of infrastructure to enable this. It would definitely be possible to adapt that hardware to connect to the satellite system launched by SpaceX instead, all it would take is a different antenna and radio system that the Sat operator would be happy to provide.
I thought you meant some kind of direct passenger connection. I think airplanes already use satellites for the internet connection, no? In any case , i dont see the huge benefit here: they will still all be sharing the same routers and probably have the same connection speed.
