Qantas WiFi (aka Qantas inflight Internet)

[RichardMEL]

Were you watching on Foxtel app or AFL paid?

Well, I was using 7plus initially to watch the ig freeze pre game stuff, and then I watched via AFL app which I have a free pass to courtesy of Telstra postpaid.. it worked fine over the wifi as in no screaming about being out of region or whatever.

I didn't try foxtel app on my phone in this instance.

 

[sudoer]

It doesn't. Wifi internet is only for domestic flights at the moment, much to the shame of some international flights that spend half the time over Australia (SIN flights, for example).

Planes fitted with wifi may fly to international destinations occasionally (VH-XZC did today to both Bali and Auckland, and XZB has done in the past), but wifi is not enabled for these flights (XZC hasn't got wifi enabled at all yet anyway)

Is anyone able to confirm whether this is still the case?

I'm on a 737 to DPS next week and judging by the equipment used over the past 7 days, there's about a 50% chance the plane will be WiFi enabled.

 

[moa999]

If an equipped aircraft it should work till you hit the Timor Sea

 

[sudoer]

If an equipped aircraft it should work till you hit the Timor Sea

Excellent, thanks!

 

[eminere]

Travelled on a wifi-enabled B738 from SYD-MEL on Monday. Could not do anything except send messages via Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Mail could not even fetch email.

 

[sudoer]

Mail could not even fetch email.

POP3/IMAP account? I wonder if they're blocking ports.

 

[pjm99au]

I watched the NRL game last night via ch 9 online whilst travelling between Brisbane and sydney. Streamed fine with no buffering.

I tried to get the Foxtel app to work but it kept on bringing up an error that I needed to be in Australia to use it

 

[eminere]

POP3/IMAP account? I wonder if they're blocking ports.

I'm not sure as it's a work phone and email account - it's an Outlook server, if that helps?

 

[moa999]

I'd be very surprised if they were blocking email.

 

[sudoer]

I'm not sure as it's a work phone and email account - it's an Outlook server, if that helps?

Could be configured as IMAP/POP3 but more likely ActiveSync, which uses the same default port (443) at HTTPS traffic. They couldn't block that port without killing access to most HTTPS websites including their own.

I'd be very surprised if they were blocking email.

I don't think they'd explicitly block email, but it wouldn't surprise me if they blocked all ports except 80 and 443. This would break POP3 and IMAP mailbox syncing.

 

[love_the_life]

Travelled on a wifi-enabled B738 from SYD-MEL on Monday. Could not do anything except send messages via Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Mail could not even fetch email.

Flew MEL - CBR last night and could do most things I wanted - sent texts, checked email, browsed the net. It was surprisingly fast but maybe not many people were using it.

 

[RickyT84]

Had a good experience with wifi a couple of Sundays ago on my MEL-SYD flight. Managed to browse the net, check Facebook and WhatsApp. The download speed was 14.6Mbps with an (as expected terrible) upload speed of 0.48Mbps.

 

[pyffii]

Had a good experience with wifi a couple of Sundays ago on my MEL-SYD flight. Managed to browse the net, check Facebook and WhatsApp. The download speed was 14.6Mbps with an (as expected terrible) upload speed of 0.48Mbps.

Flew MEL-BNE on Friday and had no issues using the internet....was fast and responsive and the 2 hours flew by really quickly

 

[Blackbird]

The CSO said the wifi on XZB had been deactivated two weeks ago on a BNE-SYD flight.
I questioned her as to whether it was unserviceable, but she stuck to deactivated.

 

[sudoer]

If an equipped aircraft it should work till you hit the Timor Sea

Despite being on a hump-equipped aircraft (VH-XZI) WiFi ended up being disabled for the entire flight The SSID was broadcasting and devices could connect, but the sign-in portal simply said "Inflight internet isn't available on this flight"

Seat power in J wasn't working either. CSM Leo (who was excellent) did his best to try fix it, but said unlike the A330 he can't reset the circuit breaker on the 738 while in flight so no dice.

Lastly, IFE had a grand total of 16 movies in English.. is that normal for a 738? I try to avoid narrow body aircraft on flights longer than two or three hours, so haven't really bothered with IFE on a QF 738 previously. This could really use an improvement though if Qantas are using these aircraft on 6 hour flights, I could nearly watch the entire catalogue flying to DPS and back.

Anyway, have submitted feedback to Qantas on all points.

 

[henrus]

Sorry if it's obvious somewhere but is there a place that lists all Wifi enabled flights for the day (with proper internet not just IFE streaming).

With Virgin you can just put in the destination and origin and a WiFi symbol appears next to the flight (https://flightstatus.virginaustralia.com/flightRoute) so I was wondering if Qantas did something similar.

 

[pjm99au]

When booking via the Qantas app it will show wifi availability for each flight option. Not sure if the website shows it

 

[Pushka]

Our flight showed in the QP as WiFi enabled. No instructions in the seat as promised and the video they were going to show didn’t happen so haven’t tried it yet.

 

[sudoer]

WiFi is always a lottery regardless of what the website/booking engine says. All you can do is book a flight operated by a 738 for best chance of winning said lottery.

 

[sudoer]

Despite being on a hump-equipped aircraft (VH-XZI) WiFi ended up being disabled for the entire flight The SSID was broadcasting and devices could connect, but the sign-in portal simply said "Inflight internet isn't available on this flight"

Forgot to update - the exact same thing happened on QF46 DPS-MEL last week. WiFi equipped plane, instruction cards in the seat pockets, yet "Inflight internet isn't available on this flight"