Delta offering free WiFi on flights

[mpeirce]

https://news.delta.com/ces2023/delta-introduces-fast-free-onboard-wi-fi

Delta will be offering free WiFi on all domestic flights starting February 1st. It’s “real” internet too, allowing streaming video.

I was on a Delta flight Saturday and they had it up and working and it was already free.

It worked great. I ran a speed test and got 70/1 Mbps. So great download speed, pretty slow upload speed, but overall not bad.

It’s using Viasat for the connectivity.

You do need to be a SkyMiles member, but that’s free and is how you get miles from Delta anyway, so it’s not a high bar to use it.

JetBlue is the only other US airline to offer free WiFi so far, though expect they all will “pretty soon”.

 

[brett]

Perfect!

I would think that this will force other competitors to do the same.

We will typically select Delta every time, all things be equal, over AA or United.

 

[tulak]

It’s great that they are doing this and hopefully other airlines will follow.

One of the perks of T-Mobile is free wifi on flights. I used this on numerous Delta flights last year. The downside is that it only works for your phone. It’ll be nice to use this on my tablet.

 

[DrRoy]

Will be using.

 

[marko]

About a year ago they sent me a questionnaire. I gave them hell for wanting to charge for WiFi when Jet Blue had it for free. Despite my Diamond status, I'm sure my comment made absolutely no difference, but I am happy to see this.

Frankly, now that I am no longer working I will likely not use it...I just like to enjoy the ride and a few glasses of wine nowadays.

 

[oldie]

One of the perks of T-Mobile is free wifi on flights. I used this on numerous Delta flights last year. The downside is that it only works for your phone. It’ll be nice to use this on my tablet.

If you're on Android, connect your phone, and do bluetooth tethering with your tablet. I do it all the time.


Otherwise you can use a travel router in a WiFi repeater mode.

 

[braumeister]

As a T-Mobile customer, I've had free wifi on Delta for quite a few years. It's a great perk.

 

[audreyh1]

As a T-Mobile customer, I've had free wifi on Delta for quite a few years. It's a great perk.

This has never been available on United flights - very annoying! They didn’t support Gogo.

Well something is available now apparently.

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/t-mobile-expands-in-flight-coverage-to-united-airlines

Sorry, that link appears to be redirecting. Try searching on “T‑Mobile Expands In‑flight Coverage to United Airlines”
September 23, 2022 announcement

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Not free; instead it's included in the price of your ticket. But good news nonetheless.

 

[tulak]

If you're on Android, connect your phone, and do bluetooth tethering with your tablet. I do it all the time.


Otherwise you can use a travel router in a WiFi repeater mode.

This might work with iPhones too. I’ve never tried it. No real reason, but I tend not to use tethering very often. If I get a chance, I’ll
try it next time and see if it works.

And I’m not sure how a travel router would work? I need the phone to connect for internet access and use as the router?

On completely different note, last trip I used a travel router for the first time that connects back to my home internet using vpn. It worked great. We were able to connect the Apple TV to the travel router hotspot and it thought we were in the US.

 

[audreyh1]

As a T-Mobile customer, I've had free wifi on Delta for quite a few years. It's a great perk.

In researching perks I discovered that T-Mobile Magenta Max customers now get 5Gb per month high speed international data per month included.

Since June of 2022 it looks like.

 

[RetiredAt49]

I’m boarded a Delta flight tomorrow morning… it’s a 4 hour flight so I’m hoping there’s free WiFi!

 

[tulak]

In researching perks I discovered that T-Mobile Magenta Max customers now get 5Gb per month high speed international data per month included.

Since June of 2022 it looks like.

Yes, this is a great perk. Saved me from having to figure out quicker internet access last summer while traveling. Worked great.

 

[Sunset]

It’s great that they are doing this and hopefully other airlines will follow.

One of the perks of T-Mobile is free wifi on flights. I used this on numerous Delta flights last year. The downside is that it only works for your phone. It’ll be nice to use this on my tablet.

Can you hot spot your phone so the tablet can work through the phone as the phone is a router for you.

 

[audreyh1]

Can you hot spot your phone so the tablet can work through the phone as the phone is a router for you.

Perhaps not with airplane mode on?

The general free WiFi would solve the problem.

 

[tulak]

Can you hot spot your phone so the tablet can work through the phone as the phone is a router for you.

This was mentioned earlier in the thread. I’ve never tried it, but I’m skeptical it’ll work. I’ll give it a shot next time I fly, but by then it might not matter if free wifi is available for all devices.

 

[tulak]

Perhaps not with airplane mode on?

The general free WiFi would solve the problem.

Airplane mode shouldn’t matter, since the phone is connected over wifi to gogo for internet access.

The question is, can an iPhone be a wifi hotspot when connected to wifi?

I know travel routers can do this, but not sure about iPhones.

 

[tulak]

Apparently you cannot:

You cannot use your Wi-Fi connection for Internet connectivity while other devices are using Wi-Fi for Personal Hotspot. You can share only a cellular data connection; you cannot share a Wi-Fi connection.

Found it in a comment here, which references Apple’s site: https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...-iphone-as-a-hotspot-on-wifi-instead-of-3g-4g

 

[audreyh1]

Airplane mode shouldn’t matter, since the phone is connected over wifi to gogo for internet access.

The question is, can an iPhone be a wifi hotspot when connected to wifi?

I know travel routers can do this, but not sure about iPhones.

I’m pretty sure my phone disconnects from WiFi and automatically connects to cell whenever I use the hotspot.

OK I see you found an answer that agrees.

 

[athena53]

Perfect!

I would think that this will force other competitors to do the same.

We will typically select Delta every time, all things be equal, over AA or United.

I hope so, too. I default to American because I'm lifetime Gold, so I can select seats, use the Priority check-in and check a bag for free.

Remember when hotels charged $9.95/day (sometimes per device?) for Internet access? It was nice to see that go away after some started including Internet access in the room cost.

 

[mpeirce]

Your iPhone can’t share a WiFi connection over WiFi, BUT you can share a WiFi connection over Bluetooth.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204023

Of course Bluetooth is much slower than WiFi, so your internet connection on the secondary device is very slow.

I just tried this. You have to pair the two devices over Bluetooth and then when I turned off WiFi on the secondary device (an iPad in my case) the link icon appeared on both devices showing that the internet sharing was active and I was on the internet.

It was quite slow. Web pages were OK, and email worked, but streaming didn’t really. Well, YouTube was sorta OK, but Netflix was very low quality.

 

[RetiredAt49]

Just finished our 4 hour flight on Delta and they didn’t offer free WiFi but it was available for $5.

 

[ERD50]

It’s great that they are doing this and hopefully other airlines will follow.

One of the perks of T-Mobile is free wifi on flights. I used this on numerous Delta flights last year. The downside is that it only works for your phone. It’ll be nice to use this on my tablet.

I'm not understanding this. It's WiFi, surely your tablet has WiFi?

There were also follow-up comments about 'Airplane Mode' - I know that 'Airplane Mode' on my devices shuts off ALL wireless communication, Cell, WiFi, Bluetooth. Some comments seemed to infer it only shut off cell service?

And WiFi tethering (AFAIK) is for getting internet over your cell connection, and then sharing over WiFi. That's a case where you could use your phone to get internet to your tablet when there is no available WiFi signal. You can't get internet over WiFi and then share it over WiFi (and there would be no point to that! Just connect to WiFi! OK, one corner-case, if your hotspot has an SSID/NAME and PW that is already known to your tablet, you would not have to enter a new SSID/PW.)

-ERD50

 

[audreyh1]

It’s great that they are doing this and hopefully other airlines will follow.

One of the perks of T-Mobile is free wifi on flights. I used this on numerous Delta flights last year. The downside is that it only works for your phone. It’ll be nice to use this on my tablet.

I'm not understanding this. It's WiFi, surely your tablet has WiFi?

-ERD50

It’s not your regular WiFi, it’s some special service that T-mobile is able to provide via your phone. The airplane also has to have a service that your phone can use.

There were also follow-up comments about 'Airplane Mode' - I know that 'Airplane Mode' on my devices shuts off ALL wireless communication, Cell, WiFi, Bluetooth. Some comments seemed to infer it only shut off cell service?

-ERD50

I’ve regularly used WiFi in a plane while in airplane mode. I often use the limited free United WiFi that lets you watch movies and view flight status on your device through the United app. You can enable WiFi in airplane mode.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I'm not understanding this. It's WiFi, surely your tablet has WiFi?

There were also follow-up comments about 'Airplane Mode' - I know that 'Airplane Mode' on my devices shuts off ALL wireless communication, Cell, WiFi, Bluetooth. Some comments seemed to infer it only shut off cell service?

And WiFi tethering (AFAIK) is for getting internet over your cell connection, and then sharing over WiFi. That's a case where you could use your phone to get internet to your tablet when there is no available WiFi signal. You can't get internet over WiFi and then share it over WiFi (and there would be no point to that! Just connect to WiFi! OK, one corner-case, if your hotspot has an SSID/NAME and PW that is already known to your tablet, you would not have to enter a new SSID/PW.)

-ERD50

I think by default, all services that communicate are shut off...then you can restart some of them (BT, Wi-Fi, etc.) I would also think there are probably some 3rd party apps that can change permissions/what happens when you turn ON airplane mode...if it's not already a customizable setting in some devices.

And yes, it would be pretty pointless to use Wi Fi and a hot spot at the same time since you can't bootstrap the connection.