American Airlines is greatly expanding the free Wi-Fi that T-Mobile customers have access to, which is pretty exciting. I first wrote about this last week, but American has now officially announced this, with an exact timeline for when it will be fully rolled out.
Continue reading: American Airlines’ Free Wi-Fi For T-Mobile Customers
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Lol Ben you definitely do not have to pay for a laptop. You can hot spot from your phone to the laptop very easily
What is a "Magenta" customer? What if you just have pre-paid on T-Mobile? You also need a phone that supports "T-Mobile Wi-Fi Calling". In other words, for many people, this is totally useless.
Most phones don't hotspot from one wifi to another. They usually can't simultaneously be both client and access point. You can use USB tethering, I guess.
Considering postpaid makes up like 90%+ of business this is in fact very useful for the vast majority of people. Prepaid is not that common nor is free wifi an included benefit
Most phones do now. But you have to disable airplane mode. Works perfectly, I do it every time I fly and the speed degradation isn't too bad
There is one (that I've seen) practical benefit on GoGo that Viasat/Panasonic don't offer: SMS/MMS functionality. When I'm on a GoGo-equipped plane, my phone functions normally (except theoretically for calls, but I don't call anyone on the ground so nbd there). On a Viasat-equipped plane, there's no SMS so I can't text people.
Magenta is a level of T-Mobile service for which you pay. Magenta MAX is their top level. Details on T-Mobile. I
That’s just not true…Some phones like iPhone do support hotspot over Bluetooth, and you don’t have to disable airplane mode. But for wifi-wifi to work your phone has to have 2 radios which is not the case.
But if you are a bit savvy in IT networking you can use your laptop easily without any hotspots…
If you have Pre-Paid T-mobile plan and a phone that doesn't support Wi-Fi calling, I'm going out on a limb and saying you aren't flying that much to really matter.
You don't even need to be a tmobile customer, you just need to know someone who is or google tmobile phone numbers. There is no verification the number you enter is actually yours. As long as you enter a tmobile number your phone will connect.
Wouldn't AA ping your handset in the background to verify T-Mobile service and eligibility? It would surprise me if they didn't.
Is this only on domestic planes, what about international wide body Viasat planes
Does t-mobile customers get free wifi for the entire flight on AA? Delta it is just for a limited time.
Sooo, its free but not really? Looks like limitations.
Magenta MAX customers receive unlimited free Wi-Fi
Magenta customers can choose four flights a year where they get unlimited free Wi-Fi, and receive one hour of free Wi-Fi on all other flights
The Magenta plans have been discontinued so you might want to update the details. “Go5G Plus and Magenta MAX customers get unlimited in-flight connection. Go5G and Magenta customers get in-flight connection on four full flights a year with 1-hour sessions thereafter.”
As someone who uses T-Mobile as their carrier I am really happy about this decision. I was on a flight just yesterday and having only ever used the Gogo wifi on American the Viasat wifi proved to be very fast and it could easily support streaming. Overall I am really excited that American offers this product
This has been available on Android phones for a few years now. This is done by accessing the Wi-Fi network using the 2.4GHz radio then creating the hotspot using the 5GHz radio (or vice versa). However, some carrier-locked models may have this functionality disabled by the carrier. Also, iPhones do not support this feature.
Am writing this from an AA A321 with Viasat from ATL to MIA right now and getting free WiFi from the T-Mobile program.
The best way I've found to share the connection is a travel router. You connect the router to the Wi-Fi and then use your phone to do the T-Mobile stuff which authenticates the router. You can then use the router's Wi-Fi network to connect multiple devices.
It works on International. United has the same benefit. I used one of my full flight credits from EWR-DXB a few months ago.
I flew from DFW to LaGuardia in September 2023 - no t-Mobile wifi. Then from DFW to LAX then to Kona no wifi. Back from OGG to DFW in October 2023 no wifi
I fly east coast to west coast and back every week. I’m seeing more flights with out this T-mobile option.