I'm asking, because I really don't know. Hopefully a technically inclined person can chime in, and apologies for asking these basic questions...

It the bandwidth issue from our devices to the router on the plane, or are the problems from the plane to the satellite? Is there a difference? Is the entertainment being offered on the plane broadcast from the plane, or via the satellite service? Will this interfere with the already slow Gogo service that we pay out the nose to receive?

If the WiFi were free, it'd slow to a crawl. There's a method to their madness. Nice move on the free entertainment though, kudos!

-- Dan

If you offer free movies to stream then it's going to slow to a crawl anyway ?

The issue is with bandwidth and signal integrity from the plane to the ground stations. Satellite only comes into play for international on the 747s and some limited number of updated 330s.

Any movies etc offered by Gogo are streamed using the local database. I'd have to assume (hope) that Gogo has some sort of intelligent bandwidth prioritization/sharing algorithm so that external web traffic and vpn gets priority and the local streaming video/audio is compressed. I can only see it causing an issue if there are dozens of pax connected and using the video service.

It's not Delta's choice...... It's GoGo, Delta just gets a percentage of sales from their flights.

The better thread title gets the win.

The situation does create work for the mods to consolidate, however.

The movies would be hosted by a server on the aircraft, not streamed from the ground.

I'm a fan of this. It always annoyed me when I could get free movies/TV while in Economy Comfort, but not elsewhere in coach. even exit rows

Awesome job Delta!

I wonder where they will draw the line between "older" and "newer" movies?

And will there be more tv channels?

And most importantly, refreshed trivia questions? ;)

From Delta's press releaseOh, I can hear the previews now: "Coming this Fall 'The Airline Who Loved Me', from the studio who brought you Deltalina and Twinkletooth..."

You may want to reread the announcement, you still won't. Only BE, F and EC with get it free, you will have to verify your seat assigment to get it.

Received the email a few minutes ago:
Subject: Announcing Delta Studio: Industry-Leading (And Free) Entertainment

Now... my experience with delta IFE has been the following:

1. Content isn't updated very frequently
2. The new interface is "clunky" and hard to use
3. Music selections have dwindled.... (yes we all have ipods, but it is nice to use the entire system some times)
4. Map has gotten worse.

TV distrubution
 

If it's done like it is in my place of work, tv signals are sent out via multicast (one to many) so bandwidth is not an issue. Gogo only sends one signal, and whoever wants to consume it can.

I would suggest merging the threads and re-titling the original with something that more people will understand, such as this thread's title...