WiFi Upgrades Beginning To Roll Out?

Old Oct 10, 2018, 9:22 am
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by 3Cforme
They can cache movies (loaded to onboard servers) but they certainly aren't caching live TV...
That is what I was thinking the multiple free Live TV channels have to be sucking up a lot of bandwidth.

The movies I get, especially the large vaults on flights like Delta and AA that have the TVs in each seat, but the Live TV has to have more consumption. And it seems to be prioritizing the bandwidth to the Live TV offerings
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Old Oct 10, 2018, 11:26 am
  #32  
nsx
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Originally Posted by cujo2344
That is what I was thinking the multiple free Live TV channels have to be sucking up a lot of bandwidth.
I always assumed the following. The TV works like a home satellite TV with a multiple-channel receiver. All offered channels are received all the time. They are transmitted by DirecTV or Dish completely separately from the Internet two-way service.
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Old Oct 10, 2018, 2:27 pm
  #33  
 
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Yup. In some way's it is true to say that the live TV is "sucking up all the bandwidth," in that a dedicated portion is always used for the TV service, and if that wasn't the case there would be more available for internet connectivity. But, as I said earlier, the TV streams are separate and aren't really affecting the two-way connections needed for individual users to have internet access.
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Old Oct 10, 2018, 6:34 pm
  #34  
 
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FWIW, it seems to be optimized for bursty/"streaming" connections (which makes sense considering the latency for each packet due to the nature of satellite internet). I've got an app (Network Monitor Mini Pro) on my tablet that puts my download/upload speeds in small text at the top of my screen, and sometimes when watching Netflix in offline mode I'll see that I'm downloading something at ~1.4MByte/second- I realize that it's Netflix' "Smart Downloads" feature (deletes watched eps and automatically gets new ones if on WiFi) and pause the download (I can wait, no need in sucking up all the bandwidth for that).

(tl;dr: the bandwidth is potentially there, but it may not be optimal for random, small-packet usage like E-mail or webpages.)
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Old Oct 10, 2018, 9:20 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by expert7700
Your statements only apply to the oldest 2.4ghz radio broadcasts. Southwest has used and still uses both 2.4 and 5ghz, and can employ band steering to 5ghz.

I haven't seen a 2.4ghz only device in a long time (though some are out there).

Look up the # of channels that standard (narrowband) 5ghz supports. Newer access points have multiple radios for non overlapping higher density situations to ease congestion, and the AC protocol can help this much further.
Dunno what they use on what aircraft. 800's or later acquired 700s might be 5ghz. But there are a handful of new aircraft with a new provider.
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Old Oct 10, 2018, 9:22 pm
  #36  
 
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I'm pretty sure 5GHz has been there since the beginning.
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Old Oct 11, 2018, 5:27 pm
  #37  
 
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Still no good today. Would not logon for free A+ service. FA agreed the service has sucked since they changed vendors.
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Old Oct 12, 2018, 5:55 pm
  #38  
 
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Talked to a FA today who said we are upgrading to dialup. 😂

Yeah, thats about how it feels.
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Old Oct 12, 2018, 5:56 pm
  #39  
 
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Aw, c'mon man ... it ain't THAT bad!
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Old Nov 9, 2018, 8:43 am
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by argolfer
Talked to a FA today who said we are upgrading to dialup. 😂

Yeah, thats about how it feels.
Similar experience yesterday flying HOU-SAN. Wifi was so slow that I couldn't do much of anything... except watch live football. I do love football, but getting work done in the air is key to my travels. I'm considering a significant number of flights coming up on WN, but with wifi that makes even gogo look fast and reliable I'm not sure that will be an option. Plane was what appeared to be an older -700. Am I correct in assuming that this is the case fleet-wide?
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Old Nov 9, 2018, 1:24 pm
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by McFlyPHL
Similar experience yesterday flying HOU-SAN. Wifi was so slow that I couldn't do much of anything... except watch live football. I do love football, but getting work done in the air is key to my travels. I'm considering a significant number of flights coming up on WN, but with wifi that makes even gogo look fast and reliable I'm not sure that will be an option. Plane was what appeared to be an older -700. Am I correct in assuming that this is the case fleet-wide?
Yes, I've been flying WN exclusively since the first week of October. On at least 60% of my flights, Wi-Fi has been completely inoperable. On another 10% or so it's been basically unusable.
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Old Nov 10, 2018, 10:54 pm
  #42  
 
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I agree - on my west coast flights the connection quality has been pretty typical - HOWEVER the percentage of time the WiFi is out of service seems very high.
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 5:50 am
  #43  
 
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Had great wifi on both of my flights this weekend. My first time back on SWA in many years.
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 12:53 pm
  #44  
 
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The wifi was working on my flights last weekend, but the internet connectivity (on the first flight) was the usual abysmal, worthless connection. Kicking myself for even spending the $8 when I know better. At least I could watch TV.
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Old Nov 13, 2018, 1:02 pm
  #45  
 
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That's the only good thing about it - for 8 bucks, I don't ever get too worked up. But most of the time I don't spend anything, because it doesn't work at all.
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