FlyerTalk Forums - United Launches Satellite-Based Wi-Fi Service

Wifi Completion Status (Last Updated: 1/16/2015)
United Wi-Fi installation

Mainland USA

B737 - 187/253 Complete (74%)
B757 - 26/133 Complete (20%)

Worldwide Coverage

A319 - 55/55 Complete (100%)
A320 - 97/97 Complete (100%)
B747 - 24/24 Complete (100%)
B767 - 2/51 Complete (4%)
B777 - 42/74 Complete (57%)
B787 - 3/14 Complete (21%)

Worldwide Coverage Area

https://www.united.com/web/format/im...ap_921x690.jpg

Satellite coverage may experience outages for reasons such as government regulations, weather and switching between satellite regions.

Gogo (PS Flights) Coverage Area

http://www.aircell.com/sites/default...erage-site.jpg

Pricing Data Points
City Pair / ~ Duration / Standard Cost / Premium Cost / Comments on Quality
747-400 (Panasonic):

SFO-FRA / 10 hrs / ?? / $22.99 / (5/2013) Peak speed was 6.5Mbps down, 2Mbps up. 700ms latency. awesome. (unavaca)
HNL-NRT / 8 hrs / $14.99 / $22.99 / The service worked all the way across the pacific, I was surprised at how reliable it was. The speediest I did topped out at .26mb, hardly "premium", but if you're ok with general web browsing and chatting with iMessage, it worked like a champ.
LAX-SYD / 14 hrs / $16.99 / No premium options. (Col Ronson) 3Mbps download speed test, worked for 95% of flight
SFO-HKG / 15 hrs / $16.99 / No premium option / (1/2014) (unavaca) speedtest immediately after wi-fi was available gave 700ms, 7Mbit down, 0.5Mbit up
BKK-NRT / 5 hr / $16.99 / No premium option / (SS255)
PEK-SFO / 11 hr / $16.99 / No premium option / Net access kept going down over the Pacific / Ookla speedtest 3.09 Mbps down, 0.23 Mbps up, 894ms RTT.

A319/A320 (Panasonic):

EWR-SFO / 6 hrs / $12.99 / $19.99 (IIRC)
EWR-SFO / 6 hrs / $14.99 / no premium option (3/2014) (greg99) speedtest 2498kbps d/l and an awesome 95kbps u/l (not a typo) 578ms latency
SFO-PHL / ~5.5 hrs / $14.99 / no premium option (4/2014) (qisu) didn't do speed test. good part of the flight had slow speed or no connection at all.
PHL-SFO / 6 hrs / $12.99 / no premium option (4/2014) (qisu) speedtest 2-3megabits down.
PHL-IAH / 4 hrs / $9.99 / $12.99 (IIRC, standard may have been $7.99?)
PHL-IAH / 3 hrs / $6.99 / no premium option [10/2013]
ORD-LAS / 3.5 hrs / $7.99 / No premium option. (lenscap)
ORD-SEA / 4 hrs / $9.99 / No premium option. (qisu)
ORD-LAX / 4 hrs / $8.99 / No premium option / speedtest peak 3mbps, average 600kbps to 1.5mbps
ORD-YVR / 4 hrs / $8.99 / No premium option / speedtest 3.86 Mbps to 10.70 Mbps down / 0.18 to 0.37 Mbps up - very reliable throughout the flight
IAD-LAX / 5 hrs / $12.99 / No premium option / speedtest peak 1.5mbps, average 400kbps to 800kbps, worked for 80% of flight but pretty spotty at times, but at least FA announced signal was poor
IAD-SEA / 5 hrs / $12.99 / No premium option / A319
SFO-LAX / 1 hr / $3.99 / No premium option / A319 (greg99)
SFO-ORD / 4 hr / $9.99 / No premium option / A320 / Pretty reliable, up most of the flight
IAH-SEA / 4.5 hrs / $8.99 / no premium option A320 (6/2014) (qisu) speedtest 5megabits down, 0.2 megabits up.

City Pair / ~ Duration / Standard or Limited Access Cost / Premium or Full Access Cost / Comments on Quality
737s (Thales LiveTV): [prices are per-hour]

IAH-TPA / ?? / $1 / $2 / (2/2014) (ssullivan) 23-25Mbps downstream (Premium/full access service). No service over Gulf of Mexico.
MIA-EWR / 2 hr / $1 / $2 / (3/2014) (hirohito888) 16Mbps down, 1Mbps up [not sure if this is for the regular or full access]
PDX-IAH / 4 hr / $1 / $2 / (4/2014) (qisu) regular was very slow, speed test about 100kilobits down.
SEA-IAH / 4 hr / $1 / $2 / (5/2014) (edcho) full access was speedy. 22 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up. Ping was 700ms.
SEA-IAH / 4 hr / $1 / $2 / (6/2014) (qisu) full access, 5-15 Mbps down, 0.2 Mbps up.