transportbiz

Heck, one guy using skype was not even bothering with the mic and earphone, just using the built in mic and speakers on his laptop, sharing both sides of his conversation with his girlfriend.

But, the point is if people can't behave and use the seats properly do you remove the seats?

mistaks

Skype and other VOIP services are killers on Wifi AP's. Most admins are getting rid of these services by disabling the ports or putting the DNS in a ACL.

TennisNoob

If one is too big for the seat, can you remove them from the seat or force them to buy another seat? I believe it's the same concept.

mahasamatman

Sensible move. I'd like to see them ban streaming video services as well.

transportbiz

I guess it's all good and great until they shut down something you enjoy or need. I'm astonished at the flippancy of being censored, and controlled.

FlyingIsCool

The other day, I was able to get on a webex, hear everybody, and they were able to hear me. All at 38,000 feet. I thought something like this wasn't supposed to be allowed.

I really needed to be on that call. I didn't talk, I was just listening in and IMing. A very productive flight.

bocastephen

I've had lots of people dial-in from onboard wifi to my meetings...as long as they don't talk and are not bothering anyone, and as long as they mute their line so we're not listening to the noise from the flight, the arrangement works just fine and I don't see a problem with it unless the activity uses a disproportionate amount of bandwidth - but shouldn't these onboard wifi systems meter out bandwidth selectively so each user so one person can't hog it for streaming or other activities?

physioprof

It's complimentary WiFi shared among numerous users. If someone doesn't like certain restrictions, they are free to use their wireless network provider Internet access.

TomMM

I can't wait to see the complaints when they move to inline content filtering.

c502cid

Uhh, excuse me ...complimentary? I pay to be in the club. I can access a firearm website on the plane but not in the club?

emcampbe

Correct - it's not allowed (streaming) by the T&Cs of the service onboard.

Given that, I'm not sure why they don't block it. Yes, there is the one aspect of not disturbing others which can be problematic, but bigger than that is the bandwidth which streaming video and audio take up. I can't imagine a Webex takes up much less bandwidth then streaming services like Netflix or HBO Go, which are specifically listed as not allowed. In my uses of United Wifi (usually the free access to The app/website to look at stuff) and the one time I used Gogo on UAX, I'm not sure how streaming even would work. On the flight I paid for Gogo, I could barely even access email/basic web stuff without it taking forever, much less a streaming service.

WineCountryUA

Webex and mostly static displays of information (slides) takes far less bandwidth highly dynamic video streams.

transportbiz

It's complimentary along with the beer, wine and food, in consideration of the $450 a year you shell out for it. I'm the last one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but uh, that is not my definition of a gift.

It's also a question of disclosure. Where am I informed upon purchase of a Club membership that the "complimentary" WiFi blocks access to certain sites?

For those who seem to worry more about unwanted noise, and think the answer is to block access for everyone rather than enforce the rules already in place that is actually covered in the terms and conditions of entry: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...virtual_expert

-During your visit to a United Club location, we ask that your attire and conduct are consistent with a professional environment.
-As a courtesy to other guests, please wear headphones when using personal devices such as MP3 players, video games and DVD players.

exerda

I have noticed that the DTV 737 feet's wifi blocks both my corporate VPN and a customer VPN. The rest of the UA fleet's wifi seems fine with both.

Jonesdds

I've really grown tired of the LAX club. Old, rundown, and crowded. But, I've been flying through LA a lot on them, my best option from/to Santa Barbara and beyond. But, the last straw was not being able to connect to my office computer and work remotely.

I use gotomypc to access and work. Maybe I'm a bit exposed doing that there but it's not as if I'm in the terminal. I've always been able to access in United Club, I think, in the past. I certainly can at any other airport lounge. This last time had a three hr layover, needed to catch up. Apparently United Clubs wifi was blocking this connection. Anyone else experience this? It's not data use, like on the plane cause I could stream video without issue. Is this an isolated issue or a new thing? I was having mac issues but going online generally was not the issue.

As an aside question, is it possible to use gotomypc or other to remotely access my computer using domestic GOGO? I had an issue on the plane but different issue, might have been my Mac. I thought maybe they treated as if streaming but got no error message, just clicking on connect did nothing.