Brian Reid
19 October 2017
United Airlines LHR-SFO offered "internet access" for money. It sucked. Every now and then I ran some ping tests (5-second intervals) because I had finished the book I was reading and I was curious about its suckitude. All tests showed 90% packet loss. Here's one. The packets that did get through had sub-second ping times. 56-byte ping payload so it's not fragmenting.
Traceroute showed 3 levels of NAT. Separate problem.
No photo description available.
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12 comments
Peter Klein Almost as bad as free WiFi at some airports, but at least it won't steal your identity... (we hope)
Richard Sexton I'm surprised they still let you on airplanes. 3
Simon Kershaw Glad to have contributed to some of the traffic 🙂
Jim Rutt Yuck. Never tried the airplane WiFi. Prefer an air flight as a refuge from all that, but thanks for another reason not to! 2
Simon Higgs How did you get access to United’s premium connectivity? It’s usually worse than that. 1
Glenn Reid Virgin America has great Wifi -- indistinguishable from real internet service. Boingo on some planes, gogo on others. One is better but I forget which. Both are very good.
Brian Reid Boingo and gogo are both ground based. United uses a satellite-based system. The United ping times say that these must be low earth orbit satellites, but still. I assume that Virgin America's Wifi does not work over oceans?
Glenn Reid I don't fly over oceans all that often. Though I am now, coincidentally. I guess I'm amazed to have internet at all, really.
Glenn Reid I'm on a United flight right now and indeed it sucks mightily. United has jumped the shark. I tried to watch 3 movies and all of them "played", but not my selection(s). Just played the same Steve Carrell movie, which was not any of my choices. Oh Well, I'll watch a TV documentary on Alaska. Nope, Steve Carrell. Seat in front of me displayed a Linux boot screen, scrolling away, then hung -- flight attentdant reset it somehow. No photo description available.
Glenn Reid If it's using a geostationary satellite, that photo just traveled about 44,465 miles, just to cause some very few of you to casually tilt your head and nod a little and think, "yeah, United has jumped the shark."
Sherry Lichtenberg ViaSat tells me that their service is better than GoGo but it's not available on many airlines, but they do serve Air Force 2.
Richard Sexton I had sat internet in 2005. It's hysterical.
Now I have an ethernet cable. It's better 80% of the time.