In-flight Wi-Fi: Emirates, Norwegian Airlines, Delta, Virgin, Gogo
Wi-Fi is everywhere, from restaurants to hotels, from cafés to shopping malls… but Wi-Fi has not reached its fullest potential.
In-flight Wi-Fi is still at its beginnings, with only a few airlines offering in-flight free Wi-Fi and some offer paid Wi-Fi.
Frequent flyers, business flyers, and tech-savvy travelers form a WiFi-sensitive market segment that airlines want to conquer. Let’s see how airlines tested in-flight Wi-Fi and which were their results.
In the US, where the majority of flights operate only 30,000 feet above land, offering in-flight WiFi is quite easy: planes access the ground-based internet communication, the same networks that mobile phones use. United Airlines, Delta, and Virgin America are between the ones that offer on-board Wi-Fi. There’s also a wireless company, named Gogo, that sells a recurring subscription to access in-flight internet to business travelers. Gogo has an average of 70 users per flight on any US coast-to-coast service.
Free Wi-Fi on French trains from 2016
Free Wi-Fi in SNCF trains, from 2016.
The general direction of SNCF (France’s national state-owned railway company) presented yesterday its digital strategy and announced SNCF will invest 450 million Euros in digital innovation. (more…)
Warning! Wi-Fi blocking is prohibited. FCC and the Marriott case
After the Marriot case, the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) issued an Enforcement Bureau advisory bearing the heading “Warning! Wi-Fi blocking is prohibited”.
D-Link DIR-890L AC3200 tri-band router goes on sale today
D-Link launches today the Ultra Performance Series routers: the the D-Link DIR-890L AC3200 is the first product of this series, that targets the high-end networking market.
First seen at CES 2015, it was presented as the “One Gigabit per second” router. The DIR 890L is a Tri-Band, Wireless Gigabit Router that supports the 802.11ac standard: it reaches a maximum data transfer rate of 3200 Mbps. It’s using the latest Broadcom chipset.
It has a single 2.4GHz band and dual 5GHz band: it splits traffic over the 3 dedicated Wi-Fi radios, for optimized network performance. The device is equipped with 6 high-gain multi-directional AC antennas, to identify where the wireless devices are and send send them a focused signal.
“We’ve set the bar for how a Wi-Fi Router should look and perform,” said Daniel Kelley, D-Link’s vice president of marketing. “Our new ULTRA Performance Series has everything a demanding user is looking for – three bands of Wi-Fi, fast speeds, beamforming, and QoS – all housed in an attractive form-factor that is sure to make a statement.”
Linksys WRT1900AC: unboxing video and description
LINKSYS WRT1900AC
Linksys 1900 AC router has been defined “without question the most ambitious consumer wireless router networking hardware available” by PCmag.com.
It’s a simultaneous dual-band 4×4 Gigabit router with 4 high-performance external antennas for enhanced dual-band communication, maximum signal strength, better coverage, and range.
The iconic blue and black design pays tribute to the old WRT series of routers, from the ’90, thanks to which Linksys developed its strong brand.
The Linksys WRT1900AC is powered by an ARM-based Cortex-A9 Marvell Dual Core 1.2 GHz CPU processor for unparalleled speed. It is also developed to be Open Source ready.
Its retail price is $ 279, but we found it on Amazon.com at $ 215.
From PCworld.com: “The WRT1900AC isn’t the most feature-laden router you can buy, but it is the fastest.”