[Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[Sauli Kiviranta]

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Last weekend I was flying from Austria to Riga, and got opportunity to test
Starlink enabled in-flight WIFI now freely available from AirBaltic. While
flying over Poland, I did a remote control "fuse check" test on a robotic
camera in a Finnish mine 400m underground, some 1300km away from the plane.

Scenario: I did remote operations test to control the camera in the mine,
with the control loop from XRTC client running through the plane WIFI
(along with the 150 other users!) to Starlink likely terminated in Poland,
then to our XRTC based RTSP relay server running on AWS in Sweden, all the
way to a Finnish mine 400m underground, where we have the mine WIFI
connected to a AXIS Q6135-LE PTZ camera that terminated the XRTC
acceleration for the TCP traffic. Then naturally the full signal loop is
returning back same path in reverse with the captured live video to be
shown on my laptop in the airplane (picture).

[image: XRTC-Starlink-airBaltic-6-2025s.jpg]

Check the video below. What this means is that I could very well be
operating a mining machine, drone, or any kind of robotic platform from
anywhere, anytime, around the globe. Even if the target is full autonomy,
there will be many cases where partial autonomy is the path in-between,
like I was now controlling the camera in the mine.

Video:  https://x.com/sksauli/status/1929281402354147463

Pretty nice performance! Few hiccups in the beginning when opening the
connection, but after that it was quite smooth sailing... flying!

I do not think people fully comprehend what Starlink is enabling!

Best regards,
Sauli

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Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[J Pan]

Hi Sauli: nice test. do you happen to have any info about your public
ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop
handover behaviors along the way? cheers.  -j
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 6:03 AM Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Last weekend I was flying from Austria to Riga, and got opportunity to test Starlink enabled in-flight WIFI now freely available from AirBaltic. While flying over Poland, I did a remote control "fuse check" test on a robotic camera in a Finnish mine 400m underground, some 1300km away from the plane.
>
> Scenario: I did remote operations test to control the camera in the mine, with the control loop from XRTC client running through the plane WIFI (along with the 150 other users!) to Starlink likely terminated in Poland, then to our XRTC based RTSP relay server running on AWS in Sweden, all the way to a Finnish mine 400m underground, where we have the mine WIFI connected to a AXIS Q6135-LE PTZ camera that terminated the XRTC acceleration for the TCP traffic. Then naturally the full signal loop is returning back same path in reverse with the captured live video to be shown on my laptop in the airplane (picture).
>
>
>
> Check the video below. What this means is that I could very well be operating a mining machine, drone, or any kind of robotic platform from anywhere, anytime, around the globe. Even if the target is full autonomy, there will be many cases where partial autonomy is the path in-between, like I was now controlling the camera in the mine.
>
> Video:  https://x.com/sksauli/status/1929281402354147463
>
> Pretty nice performance! Few hiccups in the beginning when opening the connection, but after that it was quite smooth sailing... flying!
>
> I do not think people fully comprehend what Starlink is enabling!
>
> Best regards,
> Sauli
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[Spencer Sevilla]

Hah, J beat me to this question! Also very interested in that exact detail if you happened to collect it.

> On Jun 6, 2025, at 07:36, J Pan via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi Sauli: nice test. do you happen to have any info about your public
> ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop
> handover behaviors along the way? cheers.  -j
> --
> J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
> 
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 6:03 AM Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Last weekend I was flying from Austria to Riga, and got opportunity to test Starlink enabled in-flight WIFI now freely available from AirBaltic. While flying over Poland, I did a remote control "fuse check" test on a robotic camera in a Finnish mine 400m underground, some 1300km away from the plane.
>> 
>> Scenario: I did remote operations test to control the camera in the mine, with the control loop from XRTC client running through the plane WIFI (along with the 150 other users!) to Starlink likely terminated in Poland, then to our XRTC based RTSP relay server running on AWS in Sweden, all the way to a Finnish mine 400m underground, where we have the mine WIFI connected to a AXIS Q6135-LE PTZ camera that terminated the XRTC acceleration for the TCP traffic. Then naturally the full signal loop is returning back same path in reverse with the captured live video to be shown on my laptop in the airplane (picture).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Check the video below. What this means is that I could very well be operating a mining machine, drone, or any kind of robotic platform from anywhere, anytime, around the globe. Even if the target is full autonomy, there will be many cases where partial autonomy is the path in-between, like I was now controlling the camera in the mine.
>> 
>> Video:  https://x.com/sksauli/status/1929281402354147463
>> 
>> Pretty nice performance! Few hiccups in the beginning when opening the connection, but after that it was quite smooth sailing... flying!
>> 
>> I do not think people fully comprehend what Starlink is enabling!
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Sauli
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[Nitinder Mohan]

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Hi Sauli,

I saw the video. It's pretty cool stuff! I would also like to know any network-related information you may have collected.

I would like to advertise our open-source measurement plugin for Chromium browsers: NetMet<https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/netmet-internet-performan/oaljpapbocgcgdmpbigllilolfgebhnl?hl=en>. It will test your network bandwidth, CDN performance, and DASH video streaming performance. It’s quite lightweight and can be automated to conduct periodic measurements. We are also open to adding your “favorite” measurement to our test suite.

If you are embarking on future adventures with Starlink, please install this in your browser and trigger a few tests 😊

Thanks and Regards,

Nitinder Mohan
Assistant Professor
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
www.nitindermohan.com<http://www.nitindermohan.com/>


From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of Spencer Sevilla via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Date: Friday, 6 June 2025 at 16:44
To: J Pan <Pan@uvic.ca>, Dave Taht via Starlink <Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Subject: Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations
[You don't often get email from starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification ]

Hah, J beat me to this question! Also very interested in that exact detail if you happened to collect it.

> On Jun 6, 2025, at 07:36, J Pan via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Sauli: nice test. do you happen to have any info about your public
> ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop
> handover behaviors along the way? cheers.  -j
> --
> J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
>
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 6:03 AM Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> Last weekend I was flying from Austria to Riga, and got opportunity to test Starlink enabled in-flight WIFI now freely available from AirBaltic. While flying over Poland, I did a remote control "fuse check" test on a robotic camera in a Finnish mine 400m underground, some 1300km away from the plane.
>>
>> Scenario: I did remote operations test to control the camera in the mine, with the control loop from XRTC client running through the plane WIFI (along with the 150 other users!) to Starlink likely terminated in Poland, then to our XRTC based RTSP relay server running on AWS in Sweden, all the way to a Finnish mine 400m underground, where we have the mine WIFI connected to a AXIS Q6135-LE PTZ camera that terminated the XRTC acceleration for the TCP traffic. Then naturally the full signal loop is returning back same path in reverse with the captured live video to be shown on my laptop in the airplane (picture).
>>
>>
>>
>> Check the video below. What this means is that I could very well be operating a mining machine, drone, or any kind of robotic platform from anywhere, anytime, around the globe. Even if the target is full autonomy, there will be many cases where partial autonomy is the path in-between, like I was now controlling the camera in the mine.
>>
>> Video:  https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Fsksauli%2Fstatus%2F1929281402354147463&data=05%7C02%7Cn.mohan%40tudelft.nl%7C4197cd793bb74c48cd2008dda508957b%7C096e524d692940308cd38ab42de0887b%7C0%7C0%7C638848178510683456%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C60000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jb5UYB2LU5yYjhQ%2Bqe%2BlliHA6oS7oj8tXXfajA3Rs0U%3D&reserved=0<https://x.com/sksauli/status/1929281402354147463>
>>
>> Pretty nice performance! Few hiccups in the beginning when opening the connection, but after that it was quite smooth sailing... flying!
>>
>> I do not think people fully comprehend what Starlink is enabling!
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Sauli
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.bufferbloat.net%2Flistinfo%2Fstarlink&data=05%7C02%7Cn.mohan%40tudelft.nl%7C4197cd793bb74c48cd2008dda508957b%7C096e524d692940308cd38ab42de0887b%7C0%7C0%7C638848178510710449%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C60000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=zbBNyHDfWcKtYi396lRdRdl%2BqZd3vUaruAUJRxruwlA%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink>
> _______________________________________________
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> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.bufferbloat.net%2Flistinfo%2Fstarlink&data=05%7C02%7Cn.mohan%40tudelft.nl%7C4197cd793bb74c48cd2008dda508957b%7C096e524d692940308cd38ab42de0887b%7C0%7C0%7C638848178510728397%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C60000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=9i7SSGZ2TWJtaB3ktKIN6oXUe2ljr%2BvMWNoeBFatlew%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink>

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Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[J Pan]

we have some limited tests and data collection so far: initially they
were pop'ed to departure/arrival airport's only, and now do pop
handovers along the way too. need more data though
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 7:44 AM Spencer Sevilla
<spencer.builds.networks@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hah, J beat me to this question! Also very interested in that exact detail if you happened to collect it.
>
> > On Jun 6, 2025, at 07:36, J Pan via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Sauli: nice test. do you happen to have any info about your public
> > ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop
> > handover behaviors along the way? cheers.  -j
> > --
> > J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 6:03 AM Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink
> > <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Last weekend I was flying from Austria to Riga, and got opportunity to test Starlink enabled in-flight WIFI now freely available from AirBaltic. While flying over Poland, I did a remote control "fuse check" test on a robotic camera in a Finnish mine 400m underground, some 1300km away from the plane.
> >>
> >> Scenario: I did remote operations test to control the camera in the mine, with the control loop from XRTC client running through the plane WIFI (along with the 150 other users!) to Starlink likely terminated in Poland, then to our XRTC based RTSP relay server running on AWS in Sweden, all the way to a Finnish mine 400m underground, where we have the mine WIFI connected to a AXIS Q6135-LE PTZ camera that terminated the XRTC acceleration for the TCP traffic. Then naturally the full signal loop is returning back same path in reverse with the captured live video to be shown on my laptop in the airplane (picture).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Check the video below. What this means is that I could very well be operating a mining machine, drone, or any kind of robotic platform from anywhere, anytime, around the globe. Even if the target is full autonomy, there will be many cases where partial autonomy is the path in-between, like I was now controlling the camera in the mine.
> >>
> >> Video:  https://x.com/sksauli/status/1929281402354147463
> >>
> >> Pretty nice performance! Few hiccups in the beginning when opening the connection, but after that it was quite smooth sailing... flying!
> >>
> >> I do not think people fully comprehend what Starlink is enabling!
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Sauli
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Starlink mailing list
> >> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
> > _______________________________________________
> > Starlink mailing list
> > Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>

Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[contact]

Hi Sauli!

Have you tried to run StarDebug or at least official Starlink app on your phone?

I wonder is it possible to access the hardware and get some debug data :)

> On 6 Jun 2025, at 16:04, Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> Sauli

Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[David Collier-Brown]

Just a word of praise for Sauli:

Showing a real-world demonstration of how well it worked is a really 
cool thing to do. It proved just how well it can work.  It also 
motivated us to ask a lot of questions (:-))

--dave

Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[Sauli Kiviranta]

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Deal all,

The sad thing was that I was completely unprepared! I just sit on my seat,
and after the normal safety instructions I suddenly see familiar logo on
the screen and announcement. I first thought it must be some premium
service or rather just announcement on something they plan to do in the
future. Once it sink in and I connected on my phone and ran some speed
tests to see what was available, I realized that I gotta seize the
opportunity and grab my laptop to try figure out some tests.

David: "Showing a real-world demonstration of how well it worked is a
really cool thing to do."
- Good to hear! I was quite surprised how well it worked! Obviously its
quite ideal in terms of visibility, but everything else, the handovers,
speed of moving compared to the 16 km/h recommended for the roaming dishy
and another 150 users on the same network! Was very cool experience.

Oleg: "Have you tried to run StarDebug or at least official Starlink app on
your phone? I wonder is it possible to access the hardware and get some
debug data :)"
- No, did not think of doing this! Next time I will be prepared! I think we
will just send one of the guys for a cup of coffee in Vienna to collect
data since the interest is there!

JPan: "need more data though" + "do you happen to have any info about your
public ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop
handover behaviors along the way?"
- I only ran some ping sweeps, as I was really focused on the target server
that I ran the remote control tests through, for user-experience and what
it looks like at application layer. Will add this to my script so I always
get it. With 1000 samples, ping sweep 1, min/avg/max =
36.705/50.375/112.491 ms. Sweep 2, min/avg/max = 35.804/51.484/123.599 ms.
Sweep 3, min/avg/max = 35.844/49.873/111.873 ms. Across all samples
P99=73.86389, P50=48.9325, P1=37.88168. Quite impressive!

Spencer: "very interested in that exact detail if you happened to collect
it."
- Will make sure to have it next time!

Nitinder: "If you are embarking on future adventures with Starlink, please
install this in your browser and trigger a few tests"
- Noted! Will certainly do this next time!

*****
Question: Anything else of interest if we send one of our engineers to
collect more data? Please let me know and I will try to organize it!
*****

Best regards,
Sauli

On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 8:47 PM David Collier-Brown via Starlink <
starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Just a word of praise for Sauli:
>
> Showing a real-world demonstration of how well it worked is a really
> cool thing to do. It proved just how well it can work.  It also
> motivated us to ask a lot of questions (:-))
>
> --dave
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>

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Re: [Starlink] Testing airBaltic free Starlink in-flight WIFI for mining remote operations

[J Pan]

Thanks Sauli and all others: next time, when you are on a flight with
starlink (or any inflight wifi---all can be measured without paying
them ;-), please consider to run some tests as well

+ "curl ifconfig.io" in linux or go to http://whatsmyip.org to find
out your external ip address. "nslookup ..." that external ip address
to find out your pop (see http://tinyurl.com/starlinkmap)

if you have any online activities while on the plane, you can also
find out your external ip address later by taking a look at the log of
these online activities on your server/provider side

+ "traceroute 1.1.1.1"  (or tracert on windows) to find out your path
to cloudflare public dns, and the satellite gateway's ip address
(e.g., 100.64.0.1 for starlink without a public address)

you may not be able to reach ifconfig.io or 1.1.1.1 without paying
them on a non-free inflight wifi, but you shall be able to reach their
payment website to do something equivalent too

+ "ping -D -i 0.01 -c 10000 ..." that satellite gateway to profile the
satellite link a bit. please save the output of these commands and
share with me afterward. thanks a lot for your help

+ if you can reach starlink's dish (192.168.100.1), try
http://github.com/clarkzjw/LEOViz to see which satellite that your
dish is talking to. see more details at http://oac.uvic.ca/starlink

+ if you are interested in the seat (spacex's starlink, eutelsat's
oneweb, amazon's project kuiper and telesat's lightspeed), see
http://oac.uvic.ca/leonet and http://tinyurl.com/starlinkuser
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

On Sat, Jun 7, 2025 at 5:26 AM Sauli Kiviranta via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Deal all,
>
> The sad thing was that I was completely unprepared! I just sit on my seat, and after the normal safety instructions I suddenly see familiar logo on the screen and announcement. I first thought it must be some premium service or rather just announcement on something they plan to do in the future. Once it sink in and I connected on my phone and ran some speed tests to see what was available, I realized that I gotta seize the opportunity and grab my laptop to try figure out some tests.
>
> David: "Showing a real-world demonstration of how well it worked is a really cool thing to do."
> - Good to hear! I was quite surprised how well it worked! Obviously its quite ideal in terms of visibility, but everything else, the handovers, speed of moving compared to the 16 km/h recommended for the roaming dishy and another 150 users on the same network! Was very cool experience.
>
> Oleg: "Have you tried to run StarDebug or at least official Starlink app on your phone? I wonder is it possible to access the hardware and get some debug data :)"
> - No, did not think of doing this! Next time I will be prepared! I think we will just send one of the guys for a cup of coffee in Vienna to collect data since the interest is there!
>
> JPan: "need more data though" + "do you happen to have any info about your public ip address while on the plane, so we can figure out its pop and pop handover behaviors along the way?"
> - I only ran some ping sweeps, as I was really focused on the target server that I ran the remote control tests through, for user-experience and what it looks like at application layer. Will add this to my script so I always get it. With 1000 samples, ping sweep 1, min/avg/max = 36.705/50.375/112.491 ms. Sweep 2, min/avg/max = 35.804/51.484/123.599 ms. Sweep 3, min/avg/max = 35.844/49.873/111.873 ms. Across all samples P99=73.86389, P50=48.9325, P1=37.88168. Quite impressive!
>
> Spencer: "very interested in that exact detail if you happened to collect it."
> - Will make sure to have it next time!
>
> Nitinder: "If you are embarking on future adventures with Starlink, please install this in your browser and trigger a few tests"
> - Noted! Will certainly do this next time!
>
> *****
> Question: Anything else of interest if we send one of our engineers to collect more data? Please let me know and I will try to organize it!
> *****
>
> Best regards,
> Sauli
>
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 8:47 PM David Collier-Brown via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> Just a word of praise for Sauli:
>>
>> Showing a real-world demonstration of how well it worked is a really
>> cool thing to do. It proved just how well it can work.  It also
>> motivated us to ask a lot of questions (:-))
>>
>> --dave
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink