{"id":93121,"date":"2013-12-05T22:43:06","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T20:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=93121"},"modified":"2013-12-06T08:31:16","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T06:31:16","slug":"mango-in-flight-wi-fi-tested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/93121-mango-in-flight-wi-fi-tested.html","title":{"rendered":"Mango in-flight Wi-Fi tested"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a year has passed since Mango<\/a>, WirelessG<\/a>, and Vodacom<\/a> launched in-flight Wi-Fi on\u00a0\u00a0domestic flights in South Africa, and results of recent tests we conducted on such a flight are positive.<\/p>\n

You won’t be downloading (or streaming) a movie to watch during a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, but the service did live up to its promise of providing Internet access for e-mail and web browsing.<\/p>\n

To use Mango’s in-flight Wi-Fi you’ll have to buy a voucher either through the Mango site or directly from WirelessG which costs from R50 for a single flight (valid for 3 hours from activation), to R250 for a “Super Travellers Pass” which is valid for a month and offers 300 minutes of G-Connect Wi-Fi access whether in the air or on the ground.<\/p>\n

When we were booking our flights Mango was\u00a0running a special on the single flight pass, reducing the price from R50 to R5.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that our flight from Lanseria to Cape Town did not have Wi-Fi. Travellers were notified of this only when the aircraft had taken off, with Mango saying that the Wi-Fi equipment had either not been installed or activated yet as the aircraft was new.<\/p>\n

On the return flight where Wi-Fi was available, we received consistent speeds and were able to chat, send e-mails, and browse with minimal interruption.<\/p>\n

However, as might be expected when hurtling through the sky at around 800km\/h, you do occasionally lose connectivity.<\/p>\n

During a 1.5 hour flight with mixed weather conditions we noticed a loss of Internet access four times (Google Talk disconnecting and reconnecting), and each time it was restored quickly after it dropped.<\/p>\n

\"Mango

Mango in-flight Wi-Fi from WirelessG and Vodacom Speedtest results<\/p><\/div>\n

Most of the throughput tests conducted using Ookla\u2019s Speedtest services yielded download speeds of just below 1 Megabit per seconds (Mbps) and upload speeds of around 40 kilobits per second (0.04 Mbps).<\/p>\n

The average ping to the MyBroadband site, which is hosted in South Africa, was 858 milliseconds (ms).<\/p>\n

Latency to sites and services hosted elsewhere in the world were somewhat higher, with an average ping on 973ms to Gmail and 4124ms to the New York Times website.<\/p>\n

As can be seen from the screenshot below, the pings to the New York Times website were sent during a period of intermittent connectivity. Typical pings to the US (as seen in the Speedtest.net results) ranged between 990ms and 1500ms.<\/p>\n

Access to YouTube was blocked, therefore the performance of the connection when streaming media wasn\u2019t tested.<\/p>\n

\"Mango

Mango in-flight Wi-Fi from WirelessG and Vodacom pings<\/p><\/div>\n

The Verdict<\/h3>\n

Although the slow upload speeds make voice-over-IP calls and sharing large photos infeasible, G-Connect<\/a> clearly advertises its in-flight Wi-Fi as a service for e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, and browsing.<\/p>\n

When limited to this type of usage, the Wi-Fi offering on Mango\u2019s aircraft from WirelessG and Vodacom performs well.<\/p>\n

One aspect of the service Mango should attend to is letting its customers know well in advance (preferably when booking) whether Wi-Fi is available on a flight or not.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s not possible to warn users before they buy a voucher whether in-flight Wi-Fi is available, travellers should really be offered a refund on the spot.<\/p>\n

More on in-flight Wi-Fi in South Africa<\/h3>\n

First Wi-Fi enabled flight in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

WirelessG explains in-flight Wi-Fi meltdown<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In-flight WiFi finances: WirelessG explains<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Mango not fulfilling its WiFi promise: ASA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One year on, we test Mango\u2019s in-flight Wi-Fi from WirelessG and Vodacom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":76570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1942,35,10862,2402,41,749,1781],"class_list":["post-93121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wireless","tag-g-connect","tag-headline","tag-in-flight-wi-fi","tag-mango","tag-vodacom","tag-wi-fi","tag-wirelessg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93181,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93121\/revisions\/93181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}