How can I approximate ahead of time the wifi speed and robustness of some wifi on the plane?
To be able to schedule my activities, I sometimes would like to approximate ahead of time the wifi speed and robustness of some onboard wifi to know what kind of work I can do on the plane. Given a flight, how can I approximate ahead of time the speed and robustness of the onboard wifi?
Best Answer
Easy: it will NOT be robust and it will be slow!
I don't think I've ever had a flight without interruptions and/or occasional sluggishness. It varies a lot day to day even on the same exact route.
For US domestic you have a good chance of getting at decent WIFI for at least 50% percent of the flight. Anything else is hit or miss. Actually it's mostly "miss" on international long hauls.
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How can I get faster Wi-Fi on a plane?
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Answer 2
I would say that not only is this information not well defined, I would also posit that this information is fundementally unknowable ahead of time by a passenger.
in the very least the following are critical factors:
- In-flight passenger services are not a part of the planes MEL (Minimum Equipment List), so a plane can be dispatched without working Internet
- Planes can also be substituted at will by the airline, so while one particular plane may have a suitable Internet connection, you may not be seated on that plane.
- The overall Internet connection will have a fixed capacity. So the size of the slice you get will depend on the whims of your fellow passengers.
- The internet connection is provided by radio, so the overall quality of the link will be dependent on local weather and atmospheric conditions.
Answer 3
While this only applies to browser activities, one way to find out what in-flight internet will feel like is to simulate it with Google Chrome or a Chromium-based browser.
If you hit F12 in Chrome or a related browser, you'll get the Developer Tools. These include a Network tab. On that tab, there's a dropdown that initially says "No throttling". You can change that to one of several presets, or you can define your own speed to simulate, and the browser will be slowed down to match that speed.
Of course, this won't help you know exactly what it'll be like on a plane unless you know the plane's internet speed ahead of time, but you can use it to gauge your tolerance with low speeds.
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Images: Ylanite Koppens, Digital Buggu, Pixabay, Daniel Balarezo