Coming soon: Airline Wi-Fi that actually works

Air travel and glitch-free internet access are often considered mutually exclusive, thanks to the technical difficulties associated with making Wi-Fi work at 40,000 feet. Jack Mandala, the alliance’s chief executive, said that airlines now “have equipment that only works with the provider they’ve chosen.” Universal adoption of the framework, he predicted, could change that. “Passengers are out there on social media, complaining when they can’t get service, and they don’t blame the service provider — they blame the airline.” He said new internet companies will enter the market, attracted by the unified standards. Before you start dreaming of bandwidth, however, here’s a buzzkill: Plenty of key industry players have yet to get involved — including American Airlines Group Inc., Boeing Co., Gogo Inc., and Verizon Communications Inc. “Going to these standards will knock down these artificial barriers that’s holding back this big growth in the market.” Among them: high prices, spotty service caused by bandwidth bottlenecks, the dodgy nature of typing in your credit-card number with a snoopy seatmate 5 inches away, and the general milieu of glitch behavior encountered when trying to connect on different networks with different devices.