Originally Posted by emcampbe

I've seen this occasionally as well. Haven't noticed it throughout a flight, just at one point. I know for sure the last time was on a 739. I'm pretty sure it happened once on a Gogo equipped UAX flight.

I always figured it was during a transition phase for the wifi, where it lets you get access beyond the paywall for a limited time so you can complete the authentication or sign up so you can pay, and shutsboff after. Im pretty sure I've seen this on other systems - for example, systems that want you to download an app first.