jallred6

It's been more and more slow and unstable over the past few months. Then, they started impersonating Google. I fired them at that point.

motytrah

The problem for DL was they were in pretty early with GoGo. As such they have a much older and slower system than other airlines that use GoGo. While they are actively upgrading old airplanes the simple fact is the fleet is huge. End of 2015 GoGo will only have half of the original ATG fleet upgraded to ATG-4.

GoGo doesn't break out the numbers by airline but I suspect you'll see a situation where it will be hit and miss on DL until mid to late 2016.

The BNA Gentleman

The thing I hate the most is whenever someone leaves their mifi/wireless hotspot devices on (idiots don't turn them off) - it creates havoc in an already confined wireless space full of reflection.

One device has created enough CCI (Cross channel interference) to severely affect minimal browsing (I, too, like to sniff/monitor the air).

I have to wonder what kind of testing they did when they first started surveying the RF for these installs and if they used real live humans (Our bodies create a small impact on RF and when you add 100+'s of people, it does change the design philosophy greatly.)

Considering the costs of 802.11AC gear and new features such as band select, it boggles me that they don't spend money to upgrade the infrastructure they have laid out already.

HDQDD

Those hotspots have pretty weak 2.4GHz only radios. Gogo is using all the non-overlapping 2.4GHz channels, and IIRC they're using a few of the 5G channels as well. If your device can't get around the interference, then get a new device. Anything made in the last 10 years should be able to work around that easily. (But I do agree that peeps should turn them off, if nothing else to save the battery).

In my 'hood I can see dozens of SSID's. I can still pull 600 MBps inside the house easy (I also utilize 40MHz wide channels @ 5G in the U-NII 3 band).

802.11ac isn't worth the installation costs that DL would incur to upgrade the current 802.11n infrastructure. There would be minimal benefit for the number of users we're talking about on a plane.

So far there's nothing to suggest it's wireless infrastructure related. The problem is the pipe from the plane to gogo's ground infrastructure.

flyingweekly

I tweet to gogo every time #slowgo and #nogo. The service is terrible. Just tweet to their page how bad it is, this way they know and everyone else does. I got a free month on my yearly subscription. Company pays for it, but it's a waste of money.

BigDawg23

I haven't had too many issues with it. I have noticed that my iPhone 6 Plus and Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 with AC wireless load much faster than my work Laptop. My iPhone 6 Plus is pretty quickly considering what I normally expect.

ats262

My experience exactly. Only refund they offer me is a free day, and they know I have the monthly subscription. They are a joke right now.

N639DL

It was working fine for me last month. YouTube was slow but I wasn't expecting that to work so that's a win (they say Netflix isn't supported).

BOS-ATL-DEN (Saturday morning) and DEN-MSP-BOS (Wednesday morning-early afternoon). Order of the flights: M90, 752, M90, 319.

Using a Surface Pro 3. I couldn't get Delta Studio because of my browser (only works for iPhone, iPad, etc.)

The BNA Gentleman

Outside interference of course with natural RF barriers being your windows/exterior and insulation - would be less prone to giving problems but we are talking about an enclosed RF space full of reflection with angled aluminum that would act to concentrate it on top of things sharing 2.4Ghz on the 3 channels already. The one device broadcasting on 2.4 is enough to cause enough and I'd be glad to share my captures showing the large amounts of overhead RTS/CTS packets that can cause havoc on a network. There is a reason Marriott (besides financial) was using deauth packets to not allow mifi/hotspots because they can easily cause enough interference to degrade their corporate hotel's wireless infrastructure - especially in a large conference room environments.

I do agree, switching to 5Ghz can help mitigate the problems but I do believe the AP's on the plane are set to static channel plans and not utilizing any RRM/ARM (From my observations) which - a backpack next to a PAX with a mifi device will certainly affect the performance on that 5Ghz channel is the mifi device is also broadcasting on that same channel.

If you like to have an a try with one, set your AP to the same channel as the mifi device and look what happens when you set the mifi near the client device with the AP further away.

We also have to look at the bandwidth needs per AP and how many AP's are being used. Cisco's business grade stuff (3600/3700 series WAP) can only usually handle a recommended 25-30 clients at a time and when video or voice is involved, the number of potential clients are reduced with video being less than 6-8. I would actually give credence to the discussion VOD also weighing in on the AP's abilities.

HDQDD

If the Mifi is interfering with your device, it should simply use one of the other channels (be it 2.4 or 5G). If it just so happens you have 3 pax around you using 1,6,11 on their MiFi's and your device doesn't support 5G, then I guess you're stuck with a lot of retransmissions.

The good news is that I haven't seen any mifi devices on 5G yet, although I'm sure they're probably coming. I know the power level on my Mifi's 2.4G radio is quite low compared to an average AP.

FWIW, Ive seen at least 4 AP's on a MD90 (each with multiple radios). Haven't sniffed yet on a wide. Their OUI identifies them as Cisco APs but I have no idea what model.

irfan23

Never had used GoGo before 'cos I liked being able to hide from the world while up in the air, but needed access this past Sunday due to personal emergency on the ground. Flew CLE-ATL-DCA on a 717 and 737 respectively. GoGo was a complete joke. Not only did I waste $9.95 but the frustration level raised by blood pressure by several points.

wrytoast

Yeah, they wound up giving me a free month... They started off by offering me a $10 credit and I said "Uh, no." Then they went to $20-- and I basically said "Hmm... so you want me to pay $20 for a service that's unusable?" At that point they went to the full month credit. We'll see how it goes next month...

FlyAO2

It really is terrible.

Surprisingly, what is SUPER FAST is AA's service on Int'l flights. Not sure if that is because it is new technology or not a lot of people are paying to use it, but I was very impressed

jiburi

I think it's premature to think Gogo is inadequate indefinitely as technology is constantly changing, but when more and more flight use gogo's air to satellite internet, especially for oceanic routes, I think everyone will be singing wifi more regularly.

Jiburi

motytrah

Original ATG is 3.1Mbit/sec, the upgraded ATG-4 is 9.6Mbit/sec. The Satellite based systems are 60-70Mbit/sec which is what Intl flights will use.