N1120A

Connexion by Boeing, which was the product on LH, was a whole different animal. It was extremely sophisticated and overbuilt, which is what made it both fast and expensive.

Steve M

I'd say it's guaranteed to have a ping time of at least 484ms.

tabTX

Was on UA 381 yesterday A319 from MDT - ORD. First plane I've ever been on with WiFi, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Sucked.

Spent $3.99 for the low-speed option, and it couldnt even sync Yahoo mail, or open a single webpage over the course of a 2 hour flight. This was on an iPad.

I've had no experience with any other carrier's system, so I cant compare. The guy across the aisle from me sprung for the high-speed connection ($6.99 I think), and he had some issues (such as disconnectiong occasionally), but at least he could get mail.

Not going to buy again unless others say this was an anomaly?

jimmc66

Everything is subject to Moore's Law.

DOCUMENTED complaints (with Speedtest.net reports appended) will be the ticket to faster speeds.

aveRex

Personally I wish they'd offer just one option--fastest speed possible--and price it as necessary. Just make sure it works!

greathustle

Greenland anecdotes aside, I would be interested in hearing feedback on speed/usability over continental U.S., i.e. where most people use internet on a plane to do their work

Asuka

I would rather a MB limit, then throttled.

Not all of us chew through heaps of data, but we like the speed to use the system as it is designed, not for streaming video etc.

Sam P. Goodman

I was on an A320 from ORD to SMF today that had wifi. No announcement was made and I found it by accident. They wanted $9.99 for slow and $14.99 for not as slow. Flight tracking and united.com were free, but united.com was so slow I didn't consider buying. I have no idea what speeds they were offering for free united.com browsing (though I would assume the slower of the two options), but it was taking a minute plus (literally) to navigate between pages on the site. Very slow and I don't imagine there were many people logged on. I half expected to hear the clanging of a modem connecting on a phone line.

ilovesprint

I bought the high speed for only $10.99. I can't remember the slower speed cost, but I think it was 5 or 6 bucks.

Speedtest results

Download: 2.51 Mbps.
Upload: 0.19 Mbps.
Ping Time: 446 ms
Connection Type: WIFI


So far so good

Pat89339

I was on a 319 with wifi on February 9, ORD-SFO. The pricing was $9.99 and $14.99. Since my battery was low, I chose the slower speed, which was fine for reading FT, email and the like.



I liked the ease of switching devices. You sign on the new device with your MP number and PIN.

The only problem I had was the moment the mail app launched I immediately received a email from gmail to each of my gmail addresses:

Pat89339,

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account [email protected]. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:

Sunday, February 10, 2013 1:43:00 AM UTC
IP Address: 64.88.227.134
Location: Oakland, CA, USA

If you do not recognize this sign-in attempt, someone else might be trying to access your account. You should sign in to your account and reset your password immediately. Find out how at <snip>

If this was you, and you want to give this application access to your account, complete the troubleshooting steps listed at <snip>

Note: This email address cannot accept replies.

Sincerely,
The Google Accounts Team

GBadger

4G? What the heck is that? Why deal with 4G when there's LTE ?

cblaisd

Had a flight on Sunday DEN-SEA. Bought the regular speed for $6.99. Virtually unusable. 25-40 kbps (!) when it actually worked. Four out of five times when trying use my pop3 email client the request timed out. Talked to a couple of other folks on the plane who also finally gave up (as did I)

Who would you suggest writing to at UA requesting a refund? I suppose I could do a chargeback based on not being given what was advertised.

channa

The downside with the chargeback on such a small value item is that no CC is going to process it as a chargeback. They'll just credit your $6.99 and move on, and the provider/UA/etc. will never get the message (although you will be made whole).

Bulldog83

Go to http://www.united.com/web/en-us/cont...ds/refund.aspx and select "Wi-Fi refund" from the drop down menu. FWIW, I submitted a request for a DirecTV refund through the same site on 12/5/12, and received an e-mail granting the refund on 1/9/13, so it could take a while.

willzzz88

I tend to not buy wifi as I see it as a waste of $ unless I can get good performance out of it. The current GoGo system the majority of US airlines use which uses a special crafted network of EVDO Rev A towers maxes out @ 3.1Mbps and averages 1Mbps. This is supposedly being upgraded on the aircraft & network to 9.3Mbps so I'd say the average would triple to ~3-5Mbps.

Then I saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVDCQi51xlU

Wow can satellite wifi deliver performance! ~7Mbps down and ~1Mbps up with 800ms ping (expected).

That's 7x the speed of GoGo! Granted on the United A320 from SFO to LAS there probably wasn't lots of people using the WiFi (its not a business heavy route).

http://www.united.com/web/en-us/cont...i/default.aspx

United currently uses the GoGo service on the PS service from JFK-LAX/SFO. United should rip out the GoGo system and replace it with their new Panasonic satellite wifi that is going on the rest of the fleet if the performance is that good!

The ONLY advantage of GoGo right now is that it has lower latency (about half from a review a couple of years ago). This is negated by United fleet flexability as their satellite wifi can be used literally anywhere including over water where there's coverage.