Finally WiFi with British Airways
Discussion
I probably had a hand in this assuming it's back hauled via Inmarsat, probably Global Xpress: https://www.inmarsat.com/service/gx-aviation
boxst said:
I know I shouldn’t be so excited — but finally Wi-fi arrives on British airways flights.
Posting this from the BA285 to San Francisco. Not too bad a connection and £14.99 for the entire flight.
I’d read that this was finally happening - thought it was meant to be long haul flights completed by 2017 and short haul completed in 2018?Posting this from the BA285 to San Francisco. Not too bad a connection and £14.99 for the entire flight.
I was therefore most pissed off to find that wi-fi was not available on our flights to or from Mexico last week.
boxst said:
I know I shouldn’t be so excited — but finally Wi-fi arrives on British airways flights.
Posting this from the BA285 to San Francisco. Not too bad a connection and £14.99 for the entire flight.
Really?! I’m off on one of their A380s to SF in a month or so - will be good to see, if it’s on my flight. Posting this from the BA285 to San Francisco. Not too bad a connection and £14.99 for the entire flight.
DanL said:
Really?! I’m off on one of their A380s to SF in a month or so - will be good to see, if it’s on my flight.
See my post above - hope I was just unlucky and it will be available on the majority of flights.It’s pretty ridiculous that it’s taken them this long, given that it has been available on other airlines for a few years now.
sidicks said:
I’d read that this was finally happening - thought it was meant to be long haul flights completed by 2017 and short haul completed in 2018?
I was therefore most pissed off to find that wi-fi was not available on our flights to or from Mexico last week.
If it was the clapped out 777 from Gatwick to Cancun, they'll probably never get around to it! I was therefore most pissed off to find that wi-fi was not available on our flights to or from Mexico last week.
Vegas and Orlando are also 'party bus' routes.
sidicks said:
See my post above - hope I was just unlucky and it will be available on the majority of flights.
It’s pretty ridiculous that it’s taken them this long, given that it has been available on other airlines for a few years now.
It wasn't that simple.It’s pretty ridiculous that it’s taken them this long, given that it has been available on other airlines for a few years now.
They could have installed the previous generation at great cost, but with much more limited bandwidth. BA decided to wait for the 'next gen' which, of course, appeared that they were behind the curve.
BA's Wifi Installation Manager said:
BA seems to be lagging behind some other carriers with Wi-Fi on its aircraft - why is this?
With several systems on the market and technology changing rapidly, BA has been careful to select a system that is the latest technology available and is future proof. The system that we have selected is one of the newer generation on the market and is even capable of video streaming – this means our customers are able to get a great experience in the air when using popular sites such as YouTube or Netflix.
I suppose you can choose to not believe that, but it seems plausible to me.With several systems on the market and technology changing rapidly, BA has been careful to select a system that is the latest technology available and is future proof. The system that we have selected is one of the newer generation on the market and is even capable of video streaming – this means our customers are able to get a great experience in the air when using popular sites such as YouTube or Netflix.
pushthebutton said:
I suppose you can choose to not believe that, but it seems plausible to me.
The 'previous generation' Wi-fi worked perfectly well on a JAP flight back from Tokyo a few years ago!Anyway, off to SA in a few months' time, so hope that flight will have this available.
Is it available in all classes and is the price the same?
Ructions said:
tvrolet said:
great 
[skype]HELLO? HELLO? YES IT'S ME, YES ME. I'M ON A PLANE...[/skype]
My only sanctuary from loud gobs
tes...gone forever.
Exactly my thoughts. Can people really not be parted from bookface or their smart phones even when they are at 3500 feet?[skype]HELLO? HELLO? YES IT'S ME, YES ME. I'M ON A PLANE...[/skype]
My only sanctuary from loud gobs
tes...gone forever. 
JakeT said:
Ructions said:
tvrolet said:
great
[skype]HELLO? HELLO? YES IT'S ME, YES ME. I'M ON A PLANE...[/skype]
My only sanctuary from loud gobstes...gone forever.
Exactly my thoughts. Can people really not be parted from bookface or their smart phones even when they are at 3500 feet?[skype]HELLO? HELLO? YES IT'S ME, YES ME. I'M ON A PLANE...[/skype]
My only sanctuary from loud gobs
tes...gone forever. sidicks said:
The 'previous generation' Wi-fi worked perfectly well on a JAP flight back from Tokyo a few years ago!
Anyway, off to SA in a few months' time, so hope that flight will have this available.
Is it available in all classes and is the price the same?
The pricing structure announced last year suggested it was the same price in all cabins and that there would be two tiers of service based on what you want to do with it. It’s not cheap at either £14.99/£23.99 for the full flight. You can also pay by the hour or for 4 hours.Anyway, off to SA in a few months' time, so hope that flight will have this available.
Is it available in all classes and is the price the same?
South Africa flights are night flights, eat, get drunk and fall asleep man, PH can wait!
Jag_NE said:
hopefully they keep it as a pay option so that the service is decent. I was on a China Eastern flight that had free wifi (seat class irrelevant) and it resulted in the system being unbelievably slow. Anyone under 40 is pretty much glued to a smartphone given the opportunity.
Won't make a difference, on Virgin last year to JFK the wifi even at £15 for the flight was pretty dire, it worked but don't expect to be able to do much more than basic browsingNickyboy said:
Won't make a difference, on Virgin last year to JFK the wifi even at £15 for the flight was pretty dire, it worked but don't expect to be able to do much more than basic browsing
How much bandwidth is available to my device on this aircraft?From BA website:
The available bandwidth is shared by all .air users on board, which means that the actual speed depends on the number of users at any given time, as is the case with common ground hotspots. On the ‘Browse’ package we endeavor to provide an experience of no less than approximately 250Kbps, which will be suitable for browsing the web, checking emails etc. On the ‘Stream’ package we provide an experience of no less than approximately 1Mbps. This will allow you to stream content from services such as Netflix
It was quite good for the entire flight. Dropped for maybe half an hour over Newfoundland. I wasn’t doing anything bandwidth intensive, just iMessage with some photos, WhatsApp and email. Did download a 27mb attachment and that took a while.
Running a few diagnostic tools looked like about 60 people connected, at least to the ip range I was allocated.
Overall I’m impressed.
Running a few diagnostic tools looked like about 60 people connected, at least to the ip range I was allocated.
Overall I’m impressed.
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