In-Flight Internet

Has anyone ever used this?

I travel all the time, and this is the first flight I have ever been on that offers this service.

I must say, I'm somewhat impressed. My expectations were that this would be a really slow and buggy service. I've been enjoying uninterrupted, no lag high-speed

I decided to see how far I could push it. In a VMWare window I am connected to the IBM Software Access Catalog, and am downloading one of the WebSphere Transformation Extender packages, which is total about 733 MB. I'm getting a steady 120 KB/sec, sometimes more, and am still able to do email cruise the web etc.. at fairly high speed in Firefox. (Note, IBM's Download Director throttles the max download speed). It looks like I could have started a few more download sessions without a problem.

I ran a speedtest on XP in a VMWare window and it says .57 Mbps Down/.01 Mbps Up.

The per-flight price for this type of flight was $9.95, but they had a woman passing out 25% off vouchers which brought the cost down to $7.46. The monthly price is $49.95.

The pricing seems a bit steep, but I really do like not having to worry about whether I download something that I needed before traveling...and I can send emails which should prevent me from having to stay up late doing that tonight.

The service is www.inflightgogo.com . Not sure that I will buy into this long-term unless I know for sure that it's going to be on all of my flights. It's definitely been nice on this one.

One curiousity that I have is I wonder if anyone has tried to do Skype or some VOIP service through this on a plane?

MS

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Comments

jlhct

eMeS wrote: »

Has anyone ever used this?

I travel all the time, and this is the first flight I have ever been on that offers this service.

I must say, I'm somewhat impressed. My expectations were that this would be a really slow and buggy service. I've been enjoying uninterrupted, no lag high-speed

I decided to see how far I could push it. In a VMWare window I am connected to the IBM Software Access Catalog, and am downloading one of the WebSphere Transformation Extender packages, which is total about 733 MB. I'm getting a steady 120 KB/sec, sometimes more, and am still able to do email cruise the web etc.. at fairly high speed in Firefox. (Note, IBM's Download Director throttles the max download speed). It looks like I could have started a few more download sessions without a problem.

I ran a speedtest on XP in a VMWare window and it says .57 Mbps Down/.01 Mbps Up.

The per-flight price for this type of flight was $9.95, but they had a woman passing out 25% off vouchers which brought the cost down to $7.46. The monthly price is $49.95.

The pricing seems a bit steep, but I really do like not having to worry about whether I download something that I needed before traveling...and I can send emails which should prevent me from having to stay up late doing that tonight.

The service is www.inflightgogo.com . Not sure that I will buy into this long-term unless I know for sure that it's going to be on all of my flights. It's definitely been nice on this one.

One curiousity that I have is I wonder if anyone has tried to do Skype or some VOIP service through this on a plane?

MS

I tried the service using my phone. I was able to use IM and stream satelite radio without interruption. I had a coupon for free use but I think that has since expired.

I've heard that they have blocked the ports used for Skype & VOIP, not 100% sure if that is correct though. I would imagine that it is.

eMeS

jlhct wrote: »

I've heard that they have blocked the ports used for Skype & VOIP, not 100% sure if that is correct though. I would imagine that it is.

I would think so, or else this entire plane would be chattering...

MS

jlhct

eMeS wrote: »

I would think so, or else this entire plane would be chattering...

MS

I know can you imagine???! It takes an incredible amount of patience to travel by air these days, VOIP on planes would not add to the fun factor

tiersten

I used it years ago but its disappeared from most of the carriers that fly from the UK now. Most have yanked the service due to lack of demand and running costs. At the time, it was speeds comparable to slowish DSL and I never had dropouts outs. It was good enough to do work and some browsing.

I'd assume that VoIP protocols and ports were carefully blocked though since they want you to use the exorbitantly priced satelite phones.

Turgon

eMeS wrote: »

Has anyone ever used this?

I travel all the time, and this is the first flight I have ever been on that offers this service.

I must say, I'm somewhat impressed. My expectations were that this would be a really slow and buggy service. I've been enjoying uninterrupted, no lag high-speed

I decided to see how far I could push it. In a VMWare window I am connected to the IBM Software Access Catalog, and am downloading one of the WebSphere Transformation Extender packages, which is total about 733 MB. I'm getting a steady 120 KB/sec, sometimes more, and am still able to do email cruise the web etc.. at fairly high speed in Firefox. (Note, IBM's Download Director throttles the max download speed). It looks like I could have started a few more download sessions without a problem.

I ran a speedtest on XP in a VMWare window and it says .57 Mbps Down/.01 Mbps Up.

The per-flight price for this type of flight was $9.95, but they had a woman passing out 25% off vouchers which brought the cost down to $7.46. The monthly price is $49.95.

The pricing seems a bit steep, but I really do like not having to worry about whether I download something that I needed before traveling...and I can send emails which should prevent me from having to stay up late doing that tonight.

The service is www.inflightgogo.com . Not sure that I will buy into this long-term unless I know for sure that it's going to be on all of my flights. It's definitely been nice on this one.

One curiousity that I have is I wonder if anyone has tried to do Skype or some VOIP service through this on a plane?

MS

Price seems pretty reasonable to me given the facility is available at all. It certainly takes a lot of worries out of the 'did I download everything I need on my laptop before I left the house?' situation and as you say, being able to email while on the plane certainly saves you work later when you finally get to the hotel. Are you comparing the price with something?

eMeS

Turgon wrote: »

Are you comparing the price with something?

Nope...nothing to really compare it to, except for the maybe $60 per month I spend for my Sprint Compass thing, which is totally useless on a plane.

MS

GT-Rob

I think its a fair price, considering how much the flight is (in NA anyway). I've sometimes paid that much just for a movie on a 6in screen lol. I am also finding most airports don't even have free wifi anymore, which is awful when you are waiting hours for a stop over.

tiersten

GT-Rob wrote: »

I think its a fair price, considering how much the flight is (in NA anyway). I've sometimes paid that much just for a movie on a 6in screen lol. I am also finding most airports don't even have free wifi anymore, which is awful when you are waiting hours for a stop over.

Yeah. If it was a longish flight then I'd be happy to pay $10 for internet throughout. Also assuming that I've got some way of powering my laptop...

darkerosxx

tiersten wrote: »

I'd assume that VoIP protocols and ports were carefully blocked though since they want you to use the exorbitantly priced satelite phones.

Not only that, but in all the material I've been studying, 120-150ms range on latency is max you want for VoIP. Anything near/above 300ms and it gets really bad delay/quality. What I see for satellite latency is 400-500ms range.

tiersten

darkerosxx wrote: »

Not only that, but in all the material I've been studying, 120-150ms range on latency is max you want for VoIP. Anything near/above 300ms and it gets really bad delay/quality. What I see for satellite latency is 400-500ms range.

Ah good point.

Looking more into it, the service that eMeS used isn't a satellite one. From their site, it uses a celluar network that covers the country. That'd be significantly cheaper than the services which are forced to bounce off a satellite but obviously coverage would be a problem if you're over an ocean.

The satellite phones in planes should make a kaching noise every minute so you know how fast your credit card is being depleted...

darkerosxx

That's interesting. I don't know enough about it, but if you're travelling very fast and using a cellular connection, what happens when you change towers, assuming you're forced to change?

eMeS

GT-Rob wrote: »

I think its a fair price, considering how much the flight is (in NA anyway). I've sometimes paid that much just for a movie on a 6in screen lol. I am also finding most airports don't even have free wifi anymore, which is awful when you are waiting hours for a stop over.

I didn't know airports ever had free WiFi. That was one of the reasons why I bought the Sprint Compass thing some time ago...

MS

eMeS

tiersten wrote: »

The satellite phones in planes should make a kaching noise every minute so you know how fast your credit card is being depleted...

I haven't seen one of those on a plane since around 2003...I almost always fly AA, and they took those things out because people almost never used them.

I'm assuming from the comments that other airlines still have these?

MS

tiersten

eMeS wrote: »

I haven't seen one of those on a plane since around 2003...I almost always fly AA, and they took those things out because people almost never used them.

I'm assuming from the comments that other airlines still have these?

The back of the remote in BA planes is a phone and it has a swipe reader for credit cards. I've only seen somebody use it once in all the flights I've taken over the last few years.

msteinhilber

I wish Dynamik would make posts about in-flight Internet. He would at least properly test it's capabilities and describe in full how well the streaming **** was, and the reaction of the old lady sitting next to him.

dynamik

Maybe in years past... I really don't need to worry about that anymore though. My new iPhone works great as a mobile **** device

P.S. The old lady was totally into it. I threw on some classy GMILF stuff to put her at ease...

eMeS

msteinhilber wrote: »

I wish Dynamik would make posts about in-flight Internet. He would at least properly test it's capabilities and describe in full how well the streaming **** was, and the reaction of the old lady sitting next to him.

Huh? You mean to tell me that there's **** on the Internet?

darkerosxx

YouTube - World of Warcraft - The Internet is for ****