They also encourage you to provide info on yourself (create an account, provide birthday) to even use the screen on the seat back…
Isn’t the WiFi free? It’s free for a reason. You aren’t forced to use it.
I mean they paid for the flight
And they’re getting a flight.
Flights have amenities. Some give you free food, some free wifi.
None of it is actually free of course. It’s just that the cost is included in the ticket price.
I don’t want food or WiFi. I want legroom so I can sleep. I don’t want seatback entertainment. I don’t want a complimentary tea towel, blanket, and neck pillow. I don’t want your stupid cheapo earbuds. I don’t want Tim Tams and that little sachet of Vegemite with my toast. I don’t want your gross instant coffee. I don’t even want a flat white. I don’t care that you have soymilk. And thay muffin you gave me has egg in it. I told you I can’t have egg. I don’t want your little tiny tube of toothpaste with that miniature toothbrush. I don’t want to watch Adam Sandler’s Wedding Singer on that screen you have on the wall in front of the aisle. I want legroom. I want to watch the insides of my eyelids. I hate having to lay my legs sideways for hours and being unable to relax or sleep because I am knees-pressed against the seat in front of me. And that camera on the seat back freaks me out. Why why why. Just let me sleep.
Sorry. I got a bit agitated there.
Camera on the back of the seat? I haven’t seen that one yet, will have to bring tape on my next flight
Watch out for United. That was the seatback camera airline. Qantas was the better of the ones I have been on. At least I could put the iPad with a camera in the seat pocket on Qantas.
no plans
Advertisers could be charged more depending on whether their ads are played while the flyer appears awake or not. Yayyy
Legroom is probably the most expensive thing to give on a plane, so if you want legroom, pay for the privilege and fly business class. Otherwise, at least try to enjoy the few concessions you get from the airline
Oh I’ll enjoy the little mini spy camera on the back of the seat alright.
I mean if the price of wifi is offset by showing a single ad, it seems preeeetty stingy after you already paid for a seat.
spirit CEO ^
Not all flights include Wi-Fi, even if the plane is equipped with it
For real. I’d rather watch an ad than have to pay $10+ for a couple hours of wifi.
I still open Plex and sync a bunch of shit to my phone or tablet before I take any flights. Old-school is still the way.
Plane WiFi is a modern technological marvel and you’re lucky to be able to have it at all.
Not so long ago sat phones were the domain of the super rich, because they were paying several dollars per minute. Then it was down to 10 dollars for two hours of multiplexed satellite access. And now apparently it’s down to where advertising will work. That’s amazing.
Any plane internet I’ve used has been spotty and terribly slow, but then again, I haven’t bought it in years because of previous experiences. I can stand to be without it for 2.5 hours.
I’ve been on some United flights that let you stream 4k video with no issue. It’s pretty uncommon, but it’s amazing when it’s there.
Was this 4k video from an arbitrary source, like a random YouTube video? Or from United’s website?
I haven’t flown outside is Southwest in a while, but they have a bunch of licensed video content that is hosted locally on the plane. And therefore cheap.
It’s content from places like Netflix or Hulu, or anywhere else on the general internet.
I doubt the ads are streamed over the internet, this could easily be done with local storage.
With a possible quick database update over the internet to log views
Plane wifi, in the Continental US, is typically done via cell networks. The plane just has stronger receivers and transmitters than your cellphone.
No, it’s mostly ViaSat (like in OP’s picture) now. Gogo never upgraded their infra to handle more traffic and kinda fell out of relevance. Planes with ViaSat will have large oval satellite domes on top that talk up to space.
It’s illegal to use your cell phone’s cell modem on a plane, because of an FCC rule, not an FAA rule. The cells in the cell network are designed for traffic on the ground. At cruising altitude, your modem can see way too many cells at once.
It’s a free wifi service provided by the airline while on the flight. One ad, when most other places are charging $10-20 per flight? I’ll watch the single ad. I’d rather that then someone, say, injecting adverts into sites and services. which is very possible.
Agree, which is why this is mildly infuriating and not worse. Of course there were about 10 minutes of unskippable ads on their media screens before take-off which was a pleasure to be subjected to. That should get everyone free WiFi without needing an additional ad…
Maybe it got you thirty cents off the ticket 😉
Better PR if they have a button underneath that says “skip ad ($20)”?
The more infuriating thing will be realizing that the inflight wifi is basically only good for texting and email.
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I download from my Plex server to my local device (phone) for offline viewing
I like scrolling through the offerings because it clues me in to foreign language films I had no idea existed, then I add them to my radarr library.
It sucks but I like this over what target and walmart do. If you wanna use their wifi now you MUST create an account on their website and use that to login to their wifi.
is it free? I mean you either pay with money, time and/or data.
If the ad is short and subsidizes free wifi, I ain’t mad. But if the ad is unreasonably long, or if I have to keep watching ads every x minutes to use WiFi, it becomes a problem. Not sure what the case is here, but it should be spelled out on the screen so we know what we’re getting ourselves into.
And they all interrupt the “in flight entertainment” to read a VERY long and slowly delivered advertisement for their proprietary credit card (and in flight entertainment that you have to supply device for, so you end up with smaller screen, unstable connection, battery drain and watched at a painful viewing angle typically)
As opposed to an open source credit card?
Proprietary, as in, branded specifically to the airline itself. Like a Allegiant credit card, for example.
I know
Oh cool, so just a pain in the ass then.
I was making a joke :)
Is there a way to capture these pages and report them to uBlock filter authors once online? I’d like to add a filter (or better, userscript that just enables and “clicks” the “continue” button) for my country’s rail company’s Wi-Fi captive portal but the JavaScript is obfuscated or compiled from another language so I have no idea what anything does, and of course the element classes are all randomized.
Can confirm that on Android with Firefox mobile + ublock origin the ads wouldn’t load and you were able to skip quite fast. (Not agreeing with the ads being displayed at all, that’s just a greedy move)
I am talking about the cdwifi.cz captive portal with its 30-second video ad. I cannot just disable large media because then the “Continue” button never gets enabled.
So does Delta/T-Mobile
I flew on Porter and their “ad” was just a 30 second thing about how they’re a cool airline. That’s fine, although the real cost is that they make you have a rewards account
You don’t have to have an account. The alternative is an ad every 30 minutes though and a kind of annoying disconnect (maybe?) depending on your device.
I went with making an account but the person flying with me just watched the same ad every 30 min.
You might be able to bypass it with Orbot and a snowflake. Alternatively don’t use it.
I flew business class international on united and there were ads before every movie. Their business class product used to be great, and now it’s a joke.
Better than Delta. “We have made it our mission to put accessible wifi on every flight. Unfortunately, this plane is not yet equipped… So pay us money to connect to our other wifi instead.”
