Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


MattHNZ

24 posts

Geek


#237906 23-Jun-2018 14:17
Send private message

I'm posting this from an Air New Zealand 777-200 half way between SYD and AKL.

 

Air NZ have now launched their In Flight Wi-Fi service. My first impressions are that its pretty good! I started to get excited when I was standing at the boarding gate in SYD and an Alert Popped up on my phone through the Air NZ APP: "Wi-Fi Service is Available on your Aircraft"

 

Now available on most 777's and soon to be rolled out on the 787's. You can find more info in the AirNZ Website here: https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/wifi 

 

 

The service is $15 NZD for all you can eat with no data caps which is pretty amazing for a satellite service. This allows you to connect only 1 device for your $15 bucks.

 

Note to self: Bring a pocket Wi-Fi router next time so I can NAT and share the connection between all my devices ;-)

 

You can pay using credit card or AirPoints Dollars. Or though I tried paying using Air Points and there seems to be some kind of back end problem.

 

Backhaul is provided from Inmarsat with their satellite service, latency is around 700ms as you would expect from satellite; and bandwidth is pretty good. I was able to get 15mb/sec down and 1mb/sec up on a speedtest.net test. With Inmarsat being UK based most geolocation services recognise the public IP address as being in the UK. I'm not sure if i'm rate limited at 15mb/sec or if this is the total amount of bandwidth available to everyone on board.

 

 

While the service has no data or time limits there is a content filter which blocks things like Netflix and playboy.com type sites or though Youtube is allowed. Haha.. I guess its not cool to have the guy in the seat next door to you sitting there watching his favourite adult movie ;-) And there is an IFE system so why do you need NetFlix anyway?

 

   

 

I'm a Wi-Fi guy: It looks like they are using HPE Aruba Access Points on board and IMO have done a good job with AP distribution and setup. I count 5 x 3x3 Dual Band Access Points aboard this 777-200. And as you would expect there are no DFS channels in use ;-)

 

 

It looks like this service is only being rolled out in international routes for now; As someone who does about 8-10 International Flights a year and about 10-12 domestic flights a month I would really love to see this on domestic routes too. Or though I can see it would be hard to build a business case to roll out InFlight Wi-Fi across the A320 fleet where the longest flight inside NZ is less than 2 hours.

 

Great Job Air NZ. Its taken a while but you have delivered a great service.

 

 


View this topic in a long page with up to 500 replies per page Create new topic
 1 | 2
PeterReader
6018 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Geekzone
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042836 23-Jun-2018 14:17
Send private message

Allow me to introduce you folks to our new travel community: TravelTalk NZ.

 

We hope to see you there!

 





I am the Geekzone Robot and I am here to help. I am from the Internet. I do not interact. Do not expect other replies from me.

 

These links are referral codes: Sharesies | Mighty Ape 




alasta
6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Subscriber

  #2042896 23-Jun-2018 15:48
Send private message

Are there any plans to bring this to the short haul international A320 fleet?


hio77
12999 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Lizard Networks

  #2042897 23-Jun-2018 15:55
Send private message

I'm surprised they didnt go 20mhz only for 5ghz tbh.

 

 

 

I'm not surprised the setup is pretty good though, have often been impressed by the wifi setup used for inflight 





#include <std_disclaimer>

 

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

 

 




hairy1
3332 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042900 23-Jun-2018 15:59
Send private message

alasta:

 

Are there any plans to bring this to the short haul international A320 fleet?

 

 

Yes. All short haul A320's will be fitted with Wifi as the new NEO fleet are introduced from October. 





My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.


tdgeek
29740 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042911 23-Jun-2018 16:45
Send private message

Do we really need internet access on a flight? Sounds like a Gen Z issue.


hairy1
3332 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042912 23-Jun-2018 16:48
Send private message

I used to until I downloaded Kiwix... smile





My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.


Dunnersfella
4086 posts

Uber Geek


  #2042930 23-Jun-2018 17:58
Send private message

As a regular domestic flyer... and seemingly never international...

 

I'd love to have domestic WiFi!

 

A 2 hour+ flight waaay down south always sees 20-30 e-mails backed up.

 

I watched a bloke in front of me sit on 3G/4G the whole way through a flight just last week, so people clearly want data... and won't obey the rules to put their phones into 'plane mode' when told to do so. I'd pay $10 on longer domestic flights... especially if I can pay with AirPoints, that would be super easy.


 
 
 

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.
sbiddle
30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod
Trusted
Biddle Corp
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042931 23-Jun-2018 18:01
Send private message

MattHNZ:

 

 

 

Backhaul is provided from Inmarsat with their satellite service, latency is around 700ms as you would expect from satellite; and bandwidth is pretty good. I was able to get 15mb/sec down and 1mb/sec up on a speedtest.net test. With Inmarsat being UK based most geolocation services recognise the public IP address as being in the UK. I'm not sure if i'm rate limited at 15mb/sec or if this is the total amount of bandwidth available to everyone on board.

 

 

If you're in this part of the world traffic is downlinked via Australia with the IP address being an Australian one for geo ip based services. 

 

There are a number of articles and reviews of the WiFi service on Traveltalk from when I first trialled it earlier in the year.

 

Despite the early issues with high latency with all traffic routing via Europe and me accidently getting the service shut down because of a misconfiguration I pointed out the product is now truly world class and is probably one of the best performing inflight WiFi services on offer right now in the world.

 

 

 

 


sbiddle
30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod
Trusted
Biddle Corp
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042935 23-Jun-2018 18:13
Send private message

Just FYI it's only available on 4 of the 15 777s in the fleet. It probably won't be until 2019 that any Dreamliners have WiFi (I'm not 100% sure if the two due this year will come factory fitted or not since GX wasn't a factory fit option last year), but 777 refits should start again soon now that the Dreamliner issues have settled down with the leased 777 and another on it's way soon.

 

 


eracode
Smpl Mnmlst
8846 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Subscriber

  #2042937 23-Jun-2018 18:45
Send private message

tdgeek:

Do we really need internet access on a flight? Sounds like a Gen Z issue.



The ability to download Netflix programmes to iPad has been great solution for us. Tomorrow we are returning to NZ with 2 x 12-hour flights and a fairly long transit in the middle - on an OK airline that has poor IFE. So we are loaded up on NF and NC headphones.




Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.


Linux
11391 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2042940 23-Jun-2018 19:00
Send private message

I was on a Cathay Pacific flight on the newish A350-900 2 weeks ago and that had Wi-Fi and helped passed the time on the flight up to Hong Kong

John

alasta
6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Subscriber

  #2043063 24-Jun-2018 09:30
Send private message

I flew to Europe a couple of months ago on Singapore airlines and I don’t recall the price of the Wi-Fi but it was prohibitively expensive. I was going to pay for a 50 MB allocation just so that I could receive notifications, but then I realized my devices would blow it by downloading updates.

jarledb
Webhead
3253 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator
ID Verified
Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2043076 24-Jun-2018 10:21
Send private message

I don't know the capacity of the system Air NZ uses, but Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) recently started using a system using Viasats satellites, and the system can transfer a total of 1.2 Gbit/s. Each user is only allowed 12.5 Mbit/s downstream.

 

Here is a blogpost with quite a bit of technical info about the new system.  (Google translated)





Jarle Dahl Bergersen | Referral Links: Want $50 off when you join Octopus Energy? Use this referral code
Are you happy with what you get from Geekzone? Please consider supporting us by making a donation or subscribing.


pchs
185 posts

Master Geek


  #2047307 2-Jul-2018 10:57
Send private message

Is there anyway to see which of their aircraft (I.E registration) have Wifi onboard (before you board!) 


Geektastic
17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2047588 2-Jul-2018 15:26
Send private message

Dunnersfella:

 

As a regular domestic flyer... and seemingly never international...

 

I'd love to have domestic WiFi!

 

A 2 hour+ flight waaay down south always sees 20-30 e-mails backed up.

 

I watched a bloke in front of me sit on 3G/4G the whole way through a flight just last week, so people clearly want data... and won't obey the rules to put their phones into 'plane mode' when told to do so. I'd pay $10 on longer domestic flights... especially if I can pay with AirPoints, that would be super easy.

 

 

 

 

Did you draw this flagrant abuse of international airline regulations to the attention of the crew?






 1 | 2
View this topic in a long page with up to 500 replies per page Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.