Which is the best inflight internet service flying today? Everyone has an opinion, of course. More and more, however, industry players are focused on measuring different performance factors to provide empirical data for such judgements. Most recently, SkyFive performed a series of measurements across Europe, benchmarking various systems. The results are, as expected, less than compelling.
If there’s one word that sums up our observations it is “wildly inconsistent.” Passengers really have no chance to anticipate what to expect on a particular flight.
– Dirk Lindemeier, SkyFive Chief Commercial Officer
SkyFive’s premise for the effort was twofold: First, speed tests alone are a poor indicator of network usability. Second, the cost to passengers and the experience of getting connected must also factor into the performance. As expected the company found services delivered at dramatically different levels, even when the same underlying service provider was in play. And, also as expected, the company found pricing for the services too high to drive broad adoption to monetize the offerings.
Playing games with performance metrics
Speed test numbers are easy to check, even for less technically savvy customers. They are also, unfortunately, relatively easy for suppliers to manipulate and are only one of several metrics that matter for network performance. SkyFive picked network latency as a second key factor in its scoring. “We saw that even if a link is only one megabit/second, when coupled with low latency the perceived performance was still quite good,” said Chief Commercial Officer Dirk Lindemeier. “But with high latency even very high download speeds like 47 megabits/second do not necessarily yield a great user experience.”
Lindemeier also noted that latency is one of the few metrics that an airline cannot control, once it selects a technology platform. “The only really objective parameter on the technology is latency, everything else is driven by commercial considerations.” Which is not to say that selection of the technology platform is not a commercial consideration. But adding bandwidth or changing the price to passengers is relatively easy compared to changing the speed of light.
Read more: ESpace snags $10 million, two new directors to boost inflight Wi-Fi QoE
The perfect price point?
SkyFive also scored the services on how onerous the connection experience was. All of the services measured required payment, so that was not a direct comparison. But even there the time required to connect varied significantly, as mobile payment solutions or account creation requirements added variability to the experience.
On the pricing side, Lindemeier suggests that the ideal paid take rate would be around 30-40% of users on the plane. And that service would price at roughly €1.50 per hour. The company’s survey found rates significantly higher than that today.
Less clear, however, is whether that volume of passengers will pay at all. Other research across the industry suggests it is the act of passing the paywall that dissuades users, not the price of the service. It is a psychological barrier, not a financial one.
Read more: NetForecast launches airline WiFi service monitoring tool
Core to the SkyFive argument, however, is that setting consumer expectations is critical. “If you have an expectation as an airline that people will pay for the service,” Lindemeier explains, “there needs to me more transparency as to what service level consumers can really expect to be getting. This includes not just speed numbers, but specific applications or services that will be available or blocked by the system.
The company sells a ground-based solution, one which offers latency advantages over satellite-based systems. And so perhaps it is not a surprise that the winning offering in its review (Aegean’s inflight Wi-Fi offering) uses that system (branded as European Aviation Network by Viasat, formerly Inmarsat). But Lindemeier insists the performance evaluations are not skewed towards the company’s services. Second place went to a Ka-band satellite solution while third and fourth were Ku-band satellite offerings.
Read more: Seamless finalizes QoE metrics, certifies first partner
The testing is internally consistent, however questions were raised by others around the testing protocol, including sample size (a single flight per airline/technology combo) and metrics selected.
It is unlikely that SkyFive will displace the Seamless Air Alliance, eSpace Networks, or NetForecast in the QoE monitoring world. That’s not its business model. And so perhaps better options exist to present the discussion of latency versus speed test versus other metrics.
Certainly this report has continued the conversation, rather than ending it.
More news from World Aviation Festival 2023
- Consumers really do pay to be loyal, and that’s good for them
- Air Canada’s 737 MAX fleet is (finally starting to get) online
- SkyFive sees “wildly inconsistent” performance across inflight connectivity services
- Less Artificial, more Intelligence, please!
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