DLASflyer

All the usual blogs are reporting Delta’s free wi-fi launch is imminent, citing an internal memo. Will start with domestic mainline, expanding to international mainline in 2024. No timeline for Delta Connection carriers.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/delta-free-inflight-wifi-coming-soon/

lsquare

Free wifi sounds great in theory, but is there enough capacity to ensure everyone gets a great experience? I tried in-flight wifi with DL a few years ago and recently with UA and my conclusion is that it's very slow. It resembles more of a 56k service than my definition of broadband. Hopefully, DL and UA will adopt Starlink in the near future. I'm not convinced ViaSat is the long-term solution.

eyeballer

JetBlue's free wifi works pretty well.

ethernal

As I understand, Viasat's Wifi gives each plane a few hundred megabits of bandwidth. My guess is that Delta will restrict streaming (Netflix, Youtube, ...) in their free offering and require a buy-up for that. If you're not doing video, a couple of megabits per customer is enough for everyone on the plane to browse at tolerable speeds.

I'm assuming buying up would trigger traffic shaping that prioritizes your traffic as well.

The issue with satellite internet (minus starlink which is low earth orbit) is less one of bandwidth and more one of latency. Those satellites are in geosync orbit. It takes 2 round trips to acknowledge a request, and at 22,000 miles away, that's nearly 500 milliseconds of latency at the speed of light. It will "feel" slow no matter how wide the pipe is.

MCO Flyer

Obviously as pointed out Delta Connection won’t be included in this free rollout likely because they are still equipped with the original GoGo Air-To-Ground WiFi which is notoriously slow but what about the 717s which are the only mainline fleet left to still have ATG as well (all the other mainline aircraft have some sort of Satellite Internet)?

N830MH

WN and KLM have free texting. You can text with your friends. Only on iMessage and WhatsApp.

emma dog

so does DL

lsquare

Is it ViaSat? Will there be enough capacity to accommodate all of the passengers anticipated to connect to the service?

lsquare

So I don't know how much bandwidth each plane will get. Unless you provide a source, I guess we won't really know. Is there enough bandwidth for even basic browsing if all the US airlines connect to ViaSat? Keep in mind that ViaSat doesn't just serve airlines and has other customers as well.

Yes, I'm fully aware of latency and that's the advantage of Starlink since it has a much larger constellation and is much closer to Earth so latency will be much better. Once there's global coverage, the airlines would be foolish not to partner with Starlink. HA made the right decision to go with Starlink and hopefully once people try it out, they'll demand that every other major airline rip out ViaSat gear and go with Starlink. I know I sound biased, but I really don't believe ViaSat's current constellation will be able to compete with Starlink. I know Amazon is planning to deploy their own LEOS so I'm looking forward to more competition. It's already 2022 and it makes no sense not to have a great in-flight Wifi experience whether it's flying international or domestic.

eyeballer

Yes it is.
https://www.jetblue.com/flying-with-us/wifi

No idea in terms of capacity.

VFR

I am currently sitting on a JetBlue flight, and am getting 8 Mbps down and 0.5 Mbps up. There are 140 seats on the plane, if we assume half of them use Wi-Fi, and performance degrades to 5 Mbps down with that many users, you get to 350 Mbps. Other stuff like the live TV also goes over the satellite connection I believe.

JetBlue used to have two tiers (free browsing and paid streaming) but that seems to be gone now; I’m on an A220 with Viasat 2.

lsquare

What's your general browsing experience like? Is it relatively fast? Or 56k like on United when I flew to Singapore?

VFR

It’s pretty fast, I would say comparable with Delta’s $5 Viasat Wi-Fi. I’ve been browsing and listening to streaming music; Apple Music doesn’t seem to load suggestions on planes which always annoys me.

lsquare

Have you tried UA's Wifi before? You're kind of getting my hopes up. I remember asking around on FT about what UA's in-flight Wifi was like and I felt like there is a bit of a gap between what was mentioned and what I experienced. Just to be clear, I've used UA's wifi domestically, to Canada, and Singapore and wasn't impressed with the experience. It was only "bearable" simply because there was really nothing else to do except sleep. I hope what you said is true and that B6 sets a new baseline in terms of service. Having said that, I still think the sooner the airlines adopt Starlink, the better!

VFR

I believe I've only tried UA's new $8 Wi-Fi, which is also Viasat and is acceptable... I was on a kinda old 737 for a red eye, but it did have the new Wi-Fi.