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So I'm at 23,000 feet (approximately) with my iPhone 4

W

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Original poster
Mar 29, 2008
10,055
3,978
Seattle
I failed to Skype my sister-in-law and failed to FaceTime her iPhone 4. It's like the airline is blocking the ports or something? Skype starts out fine and then gets really crackly, and FaceTime can't start...

Boo. :-(

GoGo Internet on my Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle from Minneapolis, for those interested.

I'm bored. What do I do to amuse myself for the next 3 hours? :)
 
They probably block the ports that Facetime uses. But you should still have the rest of the internet and what about YouTube to play with?
 
Isn't it more like 33,000 feet? If you have a VPN connection or a jailbroken iPhone with a SSH server back home you can get those things working. I've done VOIP on GoGo before. I've even gotten free access from it as well.
 
I envy you, my flight to seattle and back home on alaska airlines a month ago didnt have GoGo WiFi.
 
Hmmm.... Downloading apps from the app store is flakey as well. Lame! Hangs at the end. Oh well. :)
 
redbotsoftware said:
They probably block the ports that Facetime uses. But you should still have the rest of the internet and what about YouTube to play with?
Click to expand...

YouTube is working. Kinda pissed I can't use my login for my iPad. Keeps telling me it's a laptop and I have to buy another login for it for $12.95. Con!
 
You don't get the highest speed networks with inflight data services.

GoGo uses EVDO and has 500-1400kbps, but that doesn't account for the power restrictions in place on transmitter on the ground, could be much less than that speed.

Row 44 uses satellite and the data rate is going to be even lessyouy have to figure out a TDMA round trip time is going to be 500-1200 milliseconds.

Either way not the best rate/jitter/delay combinations especially with shared data.
 
WilliamG said:
I failed to Skype my sister-in-law and failed to FaceTime her iPhone 4. It's like the airline is blocking the ports or something? Skype starts out fine and then gets really crackly, and FaceTime can't start...

Boo. :-(

GoGo Internet on my Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle from Minneapolis, for those interested.

I'm bored. What do I do to amuse myself for the next 3 hours? :)
Click to expand...

Yeah I tried this about 2 weeks ago.
I assume you bought the Mobile Package.

I'm wondering if it would make a difference to buy the normal laptop package, thinking maybe it would grant you more bandwidth and/or ports.
DLing and installing apps over their wifi also is a no go. Slow as balls and hangs up at the end. I was trying to get Ustream broadcaster while up there since facetime wasn't working.

I'm interested in playing around with it more, trying the normal pc package and just messing with their system :p
 
so you're saying you paid $12.95 to chit chat with us on MacRumors? I don't claim to be an expert but based on the general population did you really expect very many intellectual responses. Sorry you wasted your money. Hopefully you have some time left to do something constructive.
 
eternlgladiator said:
so you're saying you paid $12.95 to chit chat with us on MacRumors? I don't claim to be an expert but based on the general population did you really expect very many intellectual responses. Sorry you wasted your money. Hopefully you have some time left to do something constructive.
Click to expand...

$7.95. :p
 
AK10R said:
Ha! there is a Alaska Air Ad on this page now……….
Click to expand...

Clear your cookies and cache. I bet they go away. But they might not because you live in Alaska. Ads now days are smart and tailor to the user. That's why more often than not the ads on your browser are for things you've recently looked at. Think about it....
 
eternlgladiator said:
Clear your cookies and cache. I bet they go away. But they might not because you live in Alaska. Ads now days are smart and tailor to the user. That's why more often than not the ads on your browser are for things you've recently looked at. Think about it....
Click to expand...

O’ I did not realize that…..

WillyG needs to rent one of those DIGI players…… plenty to watch on them…
 
WilliamG said:
$7.95. :p
Click to expand...

eternlgladiator said:
so you're saying you paid $12.95 to chit chat with us on MacRumors? I don't claim to be an expert but based on the general population did you really expect very many intellectual responses. Sorry you wasted your money. Hopefully you have some time left to do something constructive.
Click to expand...

I know a good trick with the gogo service.
If you change your user agent to a mobile device, such as an iphone, you can purchase the mobile version of the gogo service and use it on your laptop or ipad.

I did this on a virgin america flight with my macbook pro. used firefox and changed the user agent to iphone and the cheaper plan showed up as an option.


also, from my personal experience the bandwidth for in flight internet is horrible. anything but normal browsing was hard to do. youtube wouldnt even play smoothly.
 
Unless you have cellular data, Facetime wont work. It sends an SMS to initiate the call and cannot work simply on WiFi. The initial 'call' is over normal cellular and then once initialized it connects via WiFi.

As for Skype, as others have said, you need a constant feed of high speed data to maintain a worth while connection other wise it will break up and drop constantly. I wouldn't have thought a connection on a plane would be up to this at the moment.
No harm in you testing it out though was there :p
 
Jelite said:
Shout "I have a bomb".
Click to expand...
Yea, or when on a short skype call ask your sister to say: "I smell some gas coming from your apartment." and than ask her to check it out and if she refuses just say out loud (in a sarcastic way): "Well, than just wait there until the whole place blows up" :')
 
kAoTiX said:
Unless you have cellular data, Facetime wont work. It sends an SMS to initiate the call and cannot work simply on WiFi. The initial 'call' is over normal cellular and then once initialized it connects via WiFi.

As for Skype, as others have said, you need a constant feed of high speed data to maintain a worth while connection other wise it will break up and drop constantly. I wouldn't have thought a connection on a plane would be up to this at the moment.
No harm in you testing it out though was there :p
Click to expand...

Not sure you're correct in either case.

My sister-in-law WAS able to FaceTime me. It actually connected and then immediately disconnected. With Skype, the first 3 seconds of EVERY phone call was crystal clear, and then the connection went to RED status like it was being throttled. I truly think the ports were being blocked. I'll have to put on airplane mode later today and try some FaceTime to verify my thought that FaceTime doesn't need a cellular connection to work. I'm pretty positive it doesn't.
 
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