Tried using Gogo wireless on US Airways. No mention up front about not supporting streaming media, and they refuse to give refunds (even though I didn't use any bandwidth, as I logged off as soon as I found that it didn't work).

Their customer service is atrocious! AVOID gogo unless you want spotty connection and inability to stream any sort of media.

They should clearly state on their home page that they don't allow streaming media of any kind.

Welcome to Flyertalk

Did you read the terms you agreed to before you purchased the service?

Use Limits and Network Management. Gogo�s goal is to ensure that every user has a great experience. Towards that goal, Gogo may prioritize, restrict, or set limits (such as bandwidth allocations, or limits on types of content accessed or transferred) on your use of the Service for certain applications. In times of heavy network usage, this may impact the functioning of high bandwidth applications. As with any mobile broadband network, speed may vary due to your device, atmospheric conditions, terrain, network capacity, and aircraft location. Content, file sharing or multiplayer gaming requiring high bandwidth, such as VoIP, streaming audio and video, and file sharing, are given a lower priority and at times may be blocked or not work consistently.

Welcome to FT, We hope you stay around to learn and contribute to the forum/s. As Cordelli pointed out, the T0S clearly states any 'high bandwidth' activity is generally NOT going to work.
Tough pill to swallow at $13~ for a few hours but now you know.

This was not my experience when I flew AA from FLL to ORD 3 weeks ago. I used Tune-in on my iPad to listen to a London radio station all the way. Worked just fine and it was free thanks to Citi.

Audio is not high bandwidth.

QL

Where is the TOS when you are on gogoair.com, then click on the "BUY" button on the home page? Where on the home page do they clearly spell out that streaming media "may be blocked or not work consistently?"

They know that people want wireless to stream movies. They hide this information from the consumer in order to make money, plain and simple. If they were on the side of the consumer, they would highlight and make clear this info.

The customer rep told me that the info was on their site, and therefore they don't need to refund anyone's money. The "info" is in their "Live Help" section, clearly not where anyone would expect.

Poor site usability and purposeful mis-direction = poor customer satisfaction, but all you need to do is read all of the negative reviews and press around gogo to find that out.

Terms of Use, lower right corner of the Home page, which is a pretty standard place to look for these types of disclosures, in my experience.

Yup, it's in their TOS. You can try to file a credit card claim, but I don't think that will do any good as Gogo will just refer them back to the TOS

In the link to the terms and conditions you agreed to when you purchased the system

Which is why they do not hide it and clearly state it in their terms and conditions that you should not expect to do it. Not sure how much clearer it could be, the words

streaming audio and video, and file sharing, are given a lower priority and at times may be blocked

are fairly simple to understand

The terms have been quoted here dozens of times, and took me all of ten seconds to find. Had you looked before you bought, instead of just jumping into purchase it (or thought about how it could be at all possible to support streaming media online on an airplane using old dial up technology) you could have found it,

Yet they continue to expand and grow on airplanes. Funny how that works. There was no purposeful misdirection. Just because you accepted terms without reading them (always a very bad idea) you were not misdirected.

Do they have much competition?

More than we might think. This WSJ article identifies several:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...#ixzz1abSn3wLP

Thanks for the link.

I would say potential competitors. Those listed in the article, one's deployed only on Southwest, no U.S. carriers are listed for the 2nd, and the 3rd is a service provider that Gogo plans to switch to.

I would agree that there might be more competition coming in the market, but right now Gogo is the only game in town.

While I don't agree with it, I can sympathize with the OP's position. Very few people actually read the terms of service before they press "accept". Bruce Schneier ran a great story about a guy who purchased a new Dell and wanted to understand the ToS that had to be accepted soon after the initial boot up. The Dell rep said "just press accept" but he wanted to read the terms. The case was escalated, no one knew what the terms actually were, so he returned the computer. I'd bet that less than .01% of their customers bothered to ask.

I knew a small company that put a monetary reward deep into their ToS, available for the first person who read it. And it took a lot of users and a lot of weeks before someone claimed the loot.

I was going to pile on, but after thinking about, a good company would have just refunded his money, even if it wasn't their fault. I would make it somewhat difficult like requiring a receipt to be mailed or faxed in, so you don't get everyone just asking for a refund. I would also block his MAC address from ever connecting again, but I would do it with a smile.

+1 Try to sign up on their website. The restrictions aren't disclosed unless you click on the terms of service and even then show up as a vague possibility.

Providing a refund is more then reasonable.