Review: Gogo In-Flight WiFi

By Kin Enriquez -


Right now I am flying over the United States, from St. Louis to New York. I am aboard a Delta Connection/GoJet Airlines CRJ700. The aircraft is equipped with onboard WiFi which I am trying and using at this moment.

The setup is fairly simple. Devices are allowed one the plane reaches 10,000 ft. You open up you device's WiFi and fire up your browser. It will automatically load the Gogo page where you can sign up/in and choose your data plan. I chose the Gogo Flight Pass, which costs $9.95 and is good for the duration of the flight. If you spend the day flying on multiple segments with Delta, I think the All-Day Pass, for $14.95, is a good deal to have Internet access for the duration of your travel.

 The flight to JFK is a little more than 3 hours so I think this is sufficient to entertain me for that time. The WiFi is free if you only want to connect to the shopping site skymall.com. 

Pricing on Gogo WiFi

Once you successfully entered your payment details it will connect you right away. I was able to test the speed using the Speedtest app that I downloaded from the Google Play app store. I think the connection speed is OK: ping is 5ms, download speed is about 957 kbps and the upload speed is 459kbps. 

The Speedtest results. Not bad.

The connection speed is more than sufficient for normal browsing, and my Nexus 7, the device I am using to connect, is updating the apps in the background. I can connect to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ with no glitch, and Blogger is working great.

 It gets a bit iffy if you use streaming video, like YouTube. It can connect to the service but it buffers up every 5 seconds of video. Services such as Netflix and HBO Go are not supported. Since it is past midnight in the Philippines I won't be able to test VoIp services like Skype or Hangout. 

All in all I think this service is great, especially if you're on a business trip and you need to check emails during the flight, or if you're a blogger itching to blog about your travel experiences. Hopefully the service will be extended beyond the continental US, and in international flights. 

 Update: Aside from Delta, the Gogo service is available in the following airlines: Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier, United, US Airways and Virgin America.

 by Kin Enriquez

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