Flynet data limits?!
 

I'm a longtime reader, new poster. I love this site. I'm flying regularly on long-haul aircraft and using Wifi. Lufthansa has long offered excellent, reliable and affordable wifi service (called Flynet) on its trans-Atlantic aircraft. I was dismayed on my most recent flight to see that Flynet, provided by T-mobile, had begun to limit the amount of data that could be accessed on a flight to 1GB even at the highest level of service purchased. Don't get me wrong, there is no way that I used 1GB of data on that 8-hour flight! But the way the service behaved, it is as if I hit some invisible limit after about 4 hours of use (during which the service was so slow as to be borderline unusable) and then after that the service was almost completely unusable. I tried repeatedly to download emails, even those with no attachments that were 1-10kb each, and ran into persistent problems. Service was still available. I had full "bars" showing. I disconnected and reconnected many times.

I am curious about others' experience under the new tariff scheme on Flynet and curious whether anyone has asked Lufthansa about it.

When I requested a refund from Lufthansa on their web site, they emailed back two days later and said they had no record of my purchase. I just emailed them the PDF receipt, this time via email and not on their web site.

For me it is not so much about getting my money back as it is about getting their attention that this is a valuable part of their offering and that I would like to see it maintained or expanded.

By contrast, on Virgin Atlantic recently I had to buy 3 data passes just to get all the work done that I needed to do on that 6.5-hour flight. Each pass to that service, also provided by T-mobile, only bought 150MB of data. But at least they had a counter on the web that let me monitor the use and then purchase a new pass when it ran out.

Nonstop you?

Bandwith decreases after a few hours, according to my experience. It is probably that more passengers are using the bandwith after the service. Accordingly, I only buy the chat service,

They recently lowered the price of the three options, but introduced the 1GB/500 Mb limit after which the service is dialled down to 64kbps. I usually am content with the chat package to connect my smartphone.

My work and private computers often download considerable data when on any wifi... its probably a good idea to disable automatic software updates before hooking up to inflight wifi.

The million dollar question would be how the ipass access to flynet is rated: do the people who pay 10€/month via cphwifi etc get limited the same way?

Key thing as Oliver said: disable updates, all the gizmos are "mad about calling home" when on WiFi.
Also applies when using/renting a mobile WiFi router (unless you book a (really) unlimited data rate).

Do they still hand out Flynet vouchers to F pax? If so which type?

Telekom now allows you to purchase the code in advance: https://ongroundshop.telekom.de/LhFl...erkont/#/start

The new 'mail&surf' is only valid for one flight and capped at 500 MB. I presume that is what is handed to F pax also.

500MB - that's 1/4 to 1/3 of a flight for me! Seriously, my clients and I are sending around attachments and even when I switch off Dropbox syncing, more stuff is happening in the background to push up the volume. I don't mind paying to use extra volume. T-mobile on Virgin Atlantic kindly offered me that option and a handy counter to keep track. My point is, if LH is going to cut bandwidth, I'd like them to offer the option to buy more. I can't understand why they are not doing this.

A workaround would be to buy a pass from Mobilise the the JV of Telekom and iPass.

https://cphtravelwifi.dk/buypass
https://mobilisehotspots.com/buypass

Thanks for this! I went on both web sites and they do not mention the option to use these passes on in-flight wifi. Have you done this?

The infllight wifi part is a bit hidden: https://mobilisehotspots.com/inflight