Qantas WiFi (aka Qantas inflight Internet)

[DavidFlynn]

A quick heads-up: while Qantas planned to flick the switch on its Qantas WiFi service this coming week to allow public access to the inflight Internet service (admittedly only on the one Boeing 737 suitably kitted up, that being VH-XZB) and kick things off with a special charter flight for media on Monday March 27, those plans have now been pushed back due to what the airline claims as 'stability issues' with the satellite-based service.

The Qantas statement:

"We’ve been testing in-flight Wi-Fi for several weeks and the performance has been strong. We were preparing to open it up to media and customers this week as we continue our fine-tuning over the next few months, but some stability issues have emerged that we need to fix before customers can use it. We’re working with nbn and ViaSat to fix these issues very soon. We remain on-track for a broader roll out to the Qantas Domestic fleet from mid-2017."

 

[PLANT]

So mid June earliest now.... Maybe they could get the Easter bunny to give them a hand..... NBN---->2018?

 

[jb747]

Given my experience with NBN, they'll be lucky if it is this century.

 

[Melburnian1]

Further delay with QF WiFi introduction

Embarrassing for QF:

No Cookies | Daily Telegraph

Not sure why these last minute problems were not previously evident.

Rarely is it a good idea to announce specific launch dates unless one is supremely confident these will be met.

 

[DavidFlynn]

Re: Further delay with QF WiFi introduction

Embarrassing for QF:

No Cookies | Daily Telegraph

Not sure why these last minute problems were not previously evident.

Rarely is it a good idea to announce specific launch dates unless one is supremely confident these will be met.

Well, while we're sharing links: https://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-cancels-launch-of-free-inflight-internet

Qantas was supremely confident – the staff trial flight in Feb was solid – but 'last minute problems' by definition happen at the last minute and not beforehand... only last week, I hear, did some wrinkles develop in stability, and there was a test flight on Saturday morning on what I presume was likely to be a similar route as this morning's postponed media flight which determined the issues were still present, this shortly before we were informed at 4pm Saturday.

XZB did another test flight this morning, too, clearly QF working through this as best it can.

 

[samh004]

Re: Further delay with QF WiFi introduction

Better to have reliability, though I suspect other than the media flight, with only one aircraft with the technology onboard they'd probably not hit peak usage with regular services. Sure, there will be some early adopters on every flight who want to push the limits, but a few of them compared to a plane full of people who are inept will mean it's fairly low bandwidth

 

[njba]

Re: Further delay with QF WiFi introduction

Have they tried turning it off and on again?

 

[coyote25]

Trial star s this Friday apparently. I wonder if QF were worried that Virgin were going to beat them in roll out?

https://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-to-start-free-inflight-internet-trials-on-friday-april-7

 

[njba]

Hello from 10000ft. Onboard the lucky plane right now. ausbt review is accurate https://www.ausbt.com.au/review-qantas-wifi-boeing-737-inflight-internet

Fantastic! Any questions?

 

[PLANT]

Are you watching flying high?

 

[PLANT]

How many clicks or is the cabin more noisy?

 

[njba]

Well, a good pair of headphones helps against all noise.

No noticeable difference to cabin noise. I understand they've (tried to) block all voice services thankfully.

 

[Flying Fox]

What route are you flying?

Is the speed acceptable to you?

Many using the service?

 

[moa999]

Would assume QF448
http://flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vh-xzb

Aircraft has been doing SYD-MEL returns since launch, apart from one SYD-BNE

--

Was there any prior notification of WiFI (eg AA put WiFi symbol on boarding passes)

 

[njba]

QF448, yes! Good coughhing.

Speed was a mixed bag. The actual speed was varying between 20-40 mbps but the latency was always 1000ms+. As a result browsing the web was painful. YouTube was really slow to start but once it got doing delivered ~480p-ish results fairly consistently. Not HD but okay. My overall impression was positive but wasn't quite the experience I was expecting.

The only clue was a wifi logo below the usual one world icon by the door. Of course frequent announcements by staff and instruction cards in each seatback.

Definitely seemed to be more people on their phones than usual. Everyone was well behaved, although how much of that was the result of QF's content filter.

Look, it's 2017 so wifi on a plane shouldn't be amazing, but I was impressed nonetheless. Whether or not they can address the latancy or not will likely determine how useful the service is.

 

[moa999]

As per AusBT review all traffic is currently going
Aircraft-Sat-Ground-LA-Target content-LA-Ground-Sat-Aircraft.

ViaSat will relocate a server from LA to Aus, which will drop the ping to Australian servers to about 600ms.

But physics is physics and the satellites are a lot higher than the plane

 

[njba]

As per AusBT review all traffic is currently going
Aircraft-Sat-Ground-LA-Target content-LA-Ground-Sat-Aircraft.

ViaSat will relocate a server from LA to Aus, which will drop the ping to Australian servers to about 600ms.

But physics is physics and the satellites are a lot higher than the plane

I think 600ms would be a big improvement - if the NBN skymuster users can live with that as their primary internet, I'm sure everyone on a plane will, too!

 

[PLANT]

Ah hello Been happening in US for years..... Should be a lot better after stealing the tech used over there?

 

[moa999]

US tech is very different. The domestic WiFi generally uses ground based stations beaming up, not unlike your mobile phone.

Much more difficult in Australia with our population densities

 

[miggidy]

US tech is very different. The domestic WiFi generally uses ground based stations beaming up, not unlike your mobile phone.

Much more difficult in Australia with our population densities

The viasat tech is being used by lots of planes in the US now. Gogo initially used to ground based system but they are also upgrading to the faster technology.

I recently used the inflight wifi with Virgin America HNL-SFO. Advertised as able to stream Netflix, much like Qantas marketing currently, but it was useless for any video content. I contacted tech support and was told the plane was not within the coverage area. It tended to drop out throughout the flight but was still okay for email and web browsing.

I have used the US services quite a bit and most of them are very usable work work email, browsing etc. If the Qantas service is reliable the video streaming probably doesn't matter so much if you can be a little productive while in the air.