Originally Posted by
Thunderroad
My wife and I might fly JetBlue SFO-JFK next June. She might need wifi access during the flight, for work. A couple of questions:
1. Mainly, how reliable is the wifi for tasks such as emailing, website access, etc? I realize that no in-flight system is totally reliable. But in the experience of any folks here, is it usually available on 90 percent of the flights? 80 percent?
2. I'm also curious about whether folks using wifi/skype for conversations in-flight is possible and allowed. I actually hope that the answer is no, and don't think she'd need it. But we still would like to know.
3. I assume that the wifi reliability and speed must the same in the main cabin as in Mint. (It's hard to imagine how they would be different.) But could anyone confirm this?
Thanks for any help.
Anecdotally, About 1 out of 10 of my JetBlue flights had completely malfunctioning WiFi, and about another 1/10 had connectivity issues through a significant portion but not all of it. It can sometimes require a reset (and that sometimes does the trick,) but generally you'll know from the moment you sit down if it's behaving or not.
In the early days I was able to make Skype calls (just listening, didn't talk!) but they might throttle it more aggressively now. I haven't had any problems with individuals doing calls over the flight though!
Streaming services are hit or miss. Audio is usually no problem, but YouTube/Netflix may involve some heavy buffering. Amazon Video gets priority so if you subscribe to that it'll be exactly like on the ground.
Generally speaking it's the best WiFi program in the sky, and you can't beat the price.