KenHamer

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...d-reason.shtml

Transpacificflyer

AC should ask airlines like Thai Airways, EVA, ANA, Bangkok Airlines and probably any 50 others for guidance on how to provide quality wifi access. I have the impression that AC uses North Korea and Myanmar as its model.

24left

QUOTE
"Air Canada conducted extensive customer research earlier this year to determine which business services were most important to Maple Leaf Lounge customers. Survey results showed that Air Canada's business travellers needed high-speed Internet access, more flexibility in where they could use laptop computers and more comprehensive business centres."

- from Datavalet's website November 11, 2002

This is the Air Canada case study page. You might find a few lines in here interesting:





http://datavalet.com/en/markets/travel/air-canada

pitz

Bizarre. Nearly every airport in which MLL's exist, now have complimentary Wi-Fi for the customers. If AC can't deliver a service that at least exceeds the quality (and freedom) of the complimentary service, then they really should shut it down and arrange with the local airport to make sure proper airport-operated access points are installed in the lounges.

Providing good quality Wi-Fi isn't rocket science anymore. Actually, an organization has to be fairly incompetent to mess it up. Its quite an embarrassment when someone actually gets better overall data service on their cellular telephone's data plan than they get in a lounge with dedicated local infrastructure ostensibly for the exclusive use of MLL customers.

And ..., discriminating amongst the various MLL customers based on status for WiFi? Never heard of something so asinine in my life.

superangrypenguin

+1. Wifi speeds at YYZ MLL were so bad that even Ben S commented at how ridiculous thing ever. When I used to use the MLL there, I had to break out the data stick. Has the issue been fixed? Is it faster than 56K yet? Anyone have a throughput screenshot?

24left

I posted the Datavalet website info because the wifi provided by them/AC/whoever has not worked properly for the past year while I have been in the YYZ, YVR and LAX MLLs. Some staff have told me the problem is Rogers. Others told me that they were working with Pearson to add routers and use their wifi (which as noted above works well). I saw guys having fits one morning in the YVR Dom with almost no coverage. It is absurd.

Mostly, I just use my own cell data. I don't have time to play around with slow speed/no speed when clients are waiting for replies or work.

It is now well over a year since I was told these problems would be fixed and yet here we are.

So, given that some of the airports have faster wifi than the MLLs, given that the former LAX NZ lounge had super-speedy wifi, given that the ANA lounges have the same, I also agree with posts above - either fix the service, change the service or switch to the airport's service.

You cannot expect that those of us who pay for their MLL memberships as well as those who earn it as a benefit should be receiving something that does not work.

<end rant>

superangrypenguin

The YYZ Wifi > MLL wifi last time I used it...once I got past those darn AMEX ads

CdnFlier

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Kbd) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.2.1.3442 Mobile Safari/537.35+)

Weird, I haven't been asked to login to Davavalet in the last few MLLs. I was wondering what happened, if they just erased the login service.

Either way, it's often quite slow.

Absolute

I agree with you and 24left - I usually use the YYZ wifi, or go back to my cell's hotspot instead.

Very interesting article, thanks for the link!

pkfk13

I have checked the speeds at the LH senator lounge at FRA - and have consistently had over 20 Meg's and higher for download speeds. MLL usually has a blistering 1 or 2 Meg's as measured by speediest app.

Pathetic.

kwflyer

Was at the LGA MLL recently and the wifi there was totally unusable (only three people in the lounge). Told the lounge dragon who advised me AC has gotten rid of the wifi in the lounge (said they couldn't get a reliable speed) and to either log onto the LGA public network and pay, or to go the United Club (which I did).

Can't see how paying UA $40 per pax to go use the UC wifi and demarket the new (nicer) LGA MLL is a sustainable business model, although I am sure Ben Smith has it somewhere in his excel spreadsheet that its cheaper to do so than actually fix the problem.

YUL TB MLL was also offline. And the dragon confirmed it had been down for awhile with no resolution in sight. Aside from standing in the stairwell entrance and using the public one (which three business pax were doing, kinda reminded me of the Rouge Y stander uppers!).

antirealist

In practice, I'm not convinced that they do. It's hard to see how they could provide lower speeds than the Gold level without breaking the laws of physics.

AtlanticXpat

You know when you are going to have a crappy MLL internet experience when you look at the available wifi networks and see that everyone in the lounge is logged onto their own cellphone wifi hotspots. This was the case in YHZ during my 4 hr layover before Christmas.

Bad Wifi is unacceptable and should be relatively straightforward to fix. Is it it incompetence, bureaucracy or simply that no-one at AC gives a damn. Answers on a postcard...

24left

Despite the Datavalet quote from 2002 on what AC was looking to provide its customers and despite the Datavalet AC case study (see post #3)...
Despite the fact that the service is either insanely slow or doesn't work at all...
Despite the fact that I was told that there would be improvements....

HERE we are in January 2015 and ??????????

Maybe the intention was to get us all to use our own cell data instead of the wifi.

No, I do not see a grassy knoll. Along with all of you, I only wonder why it has not worked properly for so long and why quick and easy solutions have not been implemented.

OttawaMark

Given that it has now been 6 months since Ben Smith wrote
I can only conclude that no one at AC gives a damn and that Ben S has not been pushing as hard as we might have hoped for in this matter.