cyber1k

By the end of the year, JetBlue will alter it's Wifi service availability to include the part of your flight below 10,000 feet. Yes, gate to gate wifi is on its way and JetBlue is likely among the first airlines following WN offering access to the Internet on your flight from start to finish.

JetBlue wifi service called FlyFi is free and faster than any other onboard internet connection offered by competing services like Gogo. While Gogo inflight wifi allows for email and web browsing, JetBlue FlyFi is satellite-based and much faster offering similar speeds to that of your broadband connected home.

It's reasonable to stream a movie from NetFlix or watch a youtube video on JetBlue where it would be impossible on a vast majority of other wifi-equipped airiines.

[Updated to reflect that B6 follows WN with gate to gate internet.]

sbm12

WN already offers gate-to-gate IIRC.

And nice to see that this is finally coming; it is ~6 months late from the original announcement.

cyber1k

Thanks sbm... updated original post. Maybe 6 months later cause they needed new batteries?

sbm12

Nah...6 months late because Thales couldn't get the job done. That was an interesting conversation to have with the company's execs a couple weeks ago.

jetsetter

1. Does anyone know since FlyFi is pretty new, why didn't B6 just start out from the get go with gate to gate Wi-Fi?

2. What is the deal with Thales?

3. Does anyone know how the roll out of gate to gate will be handled i.e. E190 before A320/321 family? Note that on B6's new BOS to LGA service they are proactively advertising this is the first route with gate to gate, and this route is served with the E190. I also saw another tweet from a customer saying they had gate to gate and I don't think it ws on the BOS to LGA route?

4. To enable gate to gate, is it essentially a software update to the hardware on the plane that has to be applied?

JetBlueFA

As of right now all of the wifi equipped 190s are gate-to-gat capable. The 320s are come online a few every week.

cj_000

Currently on "True Blue" (A320), taxiing, and pleasantly surprised to have gate to gate wifi up and running. Wasnt expecting it for another month or so.

sbm12

FlyFi has been around for a couple years now. At the time it was launched the use of PEDs below 10,000 was not permitted by the FAA.

In what context?

My understanding based on conversations from the beginning of the year is that
the upgrade is on the software; no new hardware is required.

cj_000

I did notice that when the plane came off gate power the FlyFi seemed to drop for a few minutes (like a reboot, in a way), and much less, but hiccuped at 10K. Still quite nice overall though!

JetBlueFA

The FlyFi resets when ever an engine is started and the generators come online and when power is switched from the GPU to the APU. So when you are departing you are going to see FlyFi drop three times as power is momentarily interrupted by the engine startup procedure and the switch to internal power. This only happens on the 320 due to the equipment (maybe a pilot can explain is) and won't happen on the 190.

kmersh

Nobody maybe able to answer this question, but a long long time ago I had Satellite Internet at my house and was less than thrilled with it due to the small buckets of DATA one could purchase, but it got me thinking how JetBlue or UNITED or whomever purchase the DATA per aircraft?

Does JetBlue buy say X amount of GBs per aircraft or x amount of GBs per day (fleetwide) or per year or some other arrangement. I would have to imagine with the ability to stream Netflix and the like passengers are using a fair amount of DATA and thus the airlines are paying a fair amount for that DATA.

JetBlue provides at least a basic level for free, but what about UNITED which charges, if UNITED has to buy say X amount of GB per aircraft and the uptake is fairly low, UNITED is out that money.

I was impressed when I flew JetBlue and used their Wi-Fi service but it did make me think about the costs to JetBlue and if they are seeing an increase in customers due to offering Wi-Fi for free.

I realize this may all be inside baseball and nobody here might know the answer but figured it was an interesting question.

sbm12

The airlines pay on consumption. In the case of JetBlue the cost for the consumption is subsidized through advertising deals, most notably Amazon pushing its streaming service and paying for the privilege of having that joint marketing effort. That deal was signed in May 2015 and I wrote about it then.

The connectivity vendors love what they're calling the "multi-payer model" where advertising or other sponsorship covers part of the costs so that the consumer sees it as affordable or even free. That increases take rate and consumption and, generally speaking, that's good news for the vendors' revenue model. Gogo has been talking about it a lot lately, too.

RWPrincess

This is not entirely true. There was a recent discussion in another thread about how this is dependent on how many people are using the service at one time. I watched a program on Youtube last night and while I was able to watch, it did buffer several times as well. That doesn't happen on the ground.

My flight last night had sporadic service below 10,000 feet on takeoff and no service whatsoever below 10,000 feet during landing. I'm guessing this is still somewhat FA controlled? It was a redeye so I know they had to focus on waking everybody up and cleaning up the cabin on descent.

sbm12

Shouldn't be.

Lots of turning/banking or rain/moisture would adversely affect connectivity.

Long Train Runnin

I think this is an okay thread for this. Doesn't really seem like its worth starting a new one over it....

Anyway if flying from JFK to POS how would the connectivity be? Seems like most of it will be out over the water so I know that wouldn't go over well with GoGo how will B6's wifi handle it?