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JetBlue Giving All Passengers Free In-Flight 'Fly-Fi' High-Speed Wi-Fi (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli quotes a report from BetaNews: Today, JetBlue announced something miraculous for travelers. Every one of its passengers will have access to free in-flight high-speed Wi-Fi, which it calls "Fly-Fi." This is on every single aircraft in its fleet. In other words, if you are flying JetBlue, you get free high-speed internet "JetBlue's Fly-Fi, which clocks in at broadband speeds beating sluggish and pricey Wi-Fi offerings onboard other carriers, keeps customers connected with an Internet experience similar to what they have at home, including the ability to stream video and use multiple devices at once. The service enables JetBlue to deliver Amazon Video streaming entertainment to customers onboard to their personal devices, as well as web surfing and chatting on favorite messaging apps," says JetBlue. The vice president of JetBlue, Jamie Perry, explains, "It's 2017 and our customers expect to be connected everywhere, whether that be from the comfort of their sofa or 35,000 feet above it. That's why we're so proud that JetBlue is now the only airline to offer free, high-speed Wi-Fi, live TV and movies for all customers on every plane."
They've actually had this for a while now but they only recently "announced" it since they only recently got it on every single airplane they have.
I use it all the time... it's GREAT. It even works on the ground! (not every airplane but most).
The TV is satellite based LiveTV and it's always running on the LCD monitors installed on the seat. It's totally independent of WiFi so it doesn't use bandwidth.
As for the WiFi, it works for everything except certain things like TeamViewer, although I have successfully used VPN to bypass this restriction. I think it allocated more bandwidth to Amazon for streaming but even with bandwidth management, it is still 100x faster than anything on American, United, Delta or Southwest. JetBlue's system is satellite based and super fast.
For those who want to understand why this is happening now, it's because JetBlue a few years ago chose to install in its planes the next generation of satellite-based internet onboard wifi systems. This is instead of what some earlier adopter airlines chose - namely air to ground (you may commonly know providers such as GoGo/Aircell in this category - which generally serves only the continental US footprint). ATG was cheaper and developed a bit faster because its infrastructure was cheaper to build, so naturally it took hold first for many airlines. Satellite internet at that time (Ku band and those older generations) struggled to offer a reasonable price, at a time when user adoption was not as strong as now (recall Boeing's failed Connexion offering).
Now the cost and weight of the receivers and onboard systems for satellite internet are dropping, and more airlines are seeing it as a beneft/potential revenue center.
And of course, when you have a satellite connection, you don't have to be above a certain altitude before the reception of ground signals works reliably.
ViaSat (the provider of JetBlue's systems on their A320/321s) claims that every passenger could have 12Mbps bandwidth, though I'm sure in practice not quite that much -- and definitely blocked for voice calls.
As always, the other airlines which had installed ATG now face the cost of having been early adopters to a technology that is now being displaced, and since there is a heavy $ to refitting passenger aircraft with new hardware, it will take a while for them to change out the old systems for newer satellite based technologies.
The legacy carriers need to massively reform, particularly United.
The *are* reforming. The majority of the flying public have made it clear that the most important thing to them is low fares. They'd love blankets and pillows and hot meals and leg room but they're not willing to pay for it - They just sort by price in Expedia and book the cheapest option.
So United and Delta and everyone else are reforming to meet that need: They offer a rock-bottom product with no services, and then allow people to buy the services they want, a la carte. Want leg room? Buy up into Economy Plus. Want a hot meal? Buy it off the menu. Want to check a bag? Pay $X. Indexed to the cost of fuel + inflation, you're still paying less today even with all the a la carte items than you were 25 years ago.