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New alliance wants to improve terrible in-flight internet
The frustrations of internet access aboard commercial aircraft may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to the Seamless Air Alliance. Formed by Airbus, Delta, OneWeb, Sprint and Airtel, the group aims to improve the connectivity experience for passengers aboard aircraft by allowing mobile operators to provide internet access directly via satellite tech.
Two airlines are bringing faster WiFi to their international flights
Two airlines have made moves to upgrade their WiFi offerings today. Cathay Pacific Group will provide GoGo's 2Ku satellite-based broadband technology starting in 2018 and Emirates has partnered with Thales to bring 50Mpbs connectivity to its Boeing 777X fleet in 2020.
JetBlue's Fly-Fi broadband is now free on all flights
JetBlue has finally made good on that promise to provide free WiFi on every flight. The airline announced today that every jet in its fleet is now equipped with JetBlue's Fly-Fi broadband, offering "gate-to-gate" high speed internet you can use even before the flight reaches cruising altitude.
American Airlines upgrading 500 jets to faster satellite WiFi
If you want faster WiFi when you fly and don't mind paying for it, American Airlines is upgrading its WiFi systems on over 500 domestic aircraft, according to Bloomberg. To get those speeds the carrier is dumping GoGo's terrestrial Ku-band internet service in favor of ViaSat. That company's satellite technology allows for faster surfing and streaming of services like Netflix and YouTube, something that's currently verboten with GoGo. The upgrades will start in 2017 and take up to two years to complete.
We pushed the in-flight WiFi of the future to its limit
It shouldn't have worked, but I streamed an episode of Last Week Tonight, a Twitch broadcast of Fallout 4, the premiere episode of Aziz Ansari's Master of None and Meow the Jewels all at once, all on airplane WiFi. In-flight WiFi giant Gogo demoed its next-gen version of mile-high connectivity, 2Ku, above the overcast November skies of Gary, Indiana, bragging 98 percent coverage around the world (the poles don't play nicely with airborne internet) at peak speeds of 70 Mbps. The reality is transfers much slower than that on a plane with roughly 25 journalists, business folks and Gogo staff all doing the same as me: trying to break the internet for about an hour.
Netflix streams on airplanes too, starting with Virgin America
One problem with Netflix has always been that it doesn't work when you're on a plane. Starting this month however, the service's entire catalog will be available for Virgin America flights on new Airbus A320 airplanes. Virgin claimed its new ViaSat-powered WiFi is strong enough to stream video, and bringing the bandwidth-hungry Netflix aboard is certainly one way to prove it. By contrast, Amazon Prime just started letting customers store movies and TV shows so they can watch them offline anywhere. So far, Netflix has resisted an offline option, and Global Head of Business Development Bill Holmes says it's all about delivering service that "takes advantage of the expansion of WiFi." The upgraded system is rolling out to about one aircraft a month through June 2016, and will be available for free until March 2nd. Even if you don't have a Netflix account, you can sign up for a free trial, or just watch episodes from a few favorites like House of Cards or Orange is the New Black on the new Android-based entertainment systems.
Delta's in-flight WiFi is about to get a whole lot faster
If you've flown Delta recently (or most domestic airlines) and tried to use the onboard Gogo WiFi, you know that it's often a crapshoot. A combination of where you're flying over and the number of passengers attempting to use it leads to either a decent connection (yay!), one that's slow as a snail (ugh), or none at all ($#!%). Look, we need to remember that sending tweets at 35,000 feet is basically magic. But being able to stream even a low-res YouTube clip would really make flying a happier experience.
