Forum Discussion
Problems Texting on In-Flight WiFi
I flew a domestic round trip on American Airlines recently, and for the first time on both flights I was able to get free WiFi with AA with my Go5G plus plan. However, the texting didn't work on either flight. Upon landing, I received some, but not all of the texts from a group text that I am in after connecting to the mobile network. It is not clear to me why I didn't get all of the texts after landing.
I have e-911 set up, and I have made dozens of calls and sent texts over WiFi before. During the flight, wifi calling and airplane mode were both on and I was able to browse the internet. The woman sitting beside me bought internet service, and she couldn't send/receive texts or emails either. She had an iphone.
My phone is a Samsung S23. I have a flight coming up next week. If this happens again, how can I troubleshoot the problem?
¡Gracias por tu ayuda!
jauntz wrote:
Thank you for your reply. I was only using the default Android (messages by Google) texting app and sending messages through short, simple SMS. No MMS or RCS.
I recall sometimes having trouble with SMS if my phone (OnePlus 8T 5G) was in airplane mode with WiFi turned back on. To get it to work I had to turn airplane mode off. While this is not kosher on an airline, you might give it a try next time.
All I can suggest is that WiFi Calling is extremely picky about the WiFi and Internet connection. I'd ask if you tried sending texts via other apps, like Signal, WhatsApp, etc. Also, were the texts short, simple SMS, extended SMS or MMS?
jauntz wrote:
Thank you for your reply. I was only using the default Android (messages by Google) texting app and sending messages through short, simple SMS. No MMS or RCS.
I recall sometimes having trouble with SMS if my phone (OnePlus 8T 5G) was in airplane mode with WiFi turned back on. To get it to work I had to turn airplane mode off. While this is not kosher on an airline, you might give it a try next time.
Wifi reliability on planes is very hit and miss due to the way airplane WiFi works. It is possible that those messages you didn't get were because the plane had moved beyond one ground relay station to another or out of the range of one cubesat to another when the message was enroute to the aircraft.
So, I have completed my trip. It turns out that a hard restart of the phone solved the problem.
drnewcomb wrote:
All I can suggest is that WiFi Calling is extremely picky about the WiFi and Internet connection. I'd ask if you tried sending texts via other apps, like Signal, WhatsApp, etc. Also, were the texts short, simple SMS, extended SMS or MMS?
Thank you for your reply. I was only using the default Android (messages by Google) texting app and sending messages through short, simple SMS. No MMS or RCS.
drnewcomb wrote:
jauntz wrote:
Thank you for your reply. I was only using the default Android (messages by Google) texting app and sending messages through short, simple SMS. No MMS or RCS.
I recall sometimes having trouble with SMS if my phone (OnePlus 8T 5G) was in airplane mode with WiFi turned back on. To get it to work I had to turn airplane mode off. While this is not kosher on an airline, you might give it a try next time.
That crossed my mind as well. So I gave it a try on my home wifi network. When I turned on airplane mode and wifi calling at home, I could send and receive texts like normal. It sounds like airplane wifi just might be different.
My thought right now is to get on the plane, and restart my phone before logging into the plane wifi. Then after logging on, I will try to send a text from my phone to my Google Voice account and see if that works. If it doesn't, I might just turn off wifi calling for the flight so that none of my text messages get dropped. Hopefully, I can do all of this on the ground during boarding.
I appreciate everyone's help! The ability to text during the flight would help me get some things done before landing. It's a 4 hour flight.
¡Gracias!
jauntz wrote:
So, I have completed my trip. It turns out that a hard restart of the phone solved the problem.
I'm experiencing this same issue and have been since i got T-Mobile. Did you restart your phone while on the plane in airplane mode? I've restarted my phone dozens of times, but yet to get texting in flight to work.
Dhitchner wrote:
jauntz wrote:
So, I have completed my trip. It turns out that a hard restart of the phone solved the problem.
I'm experiencing this same issue and have been since i got T-Mobile. Did you restart your phone while on the plane in airplane mode? I've restarted my phone dozens of times, but yet to get texting in flight to work.
I restarted my phone after I got on the plane. The restart resets the wifi settings on the phone. Specifically, while still on the ground, I logged into the plane's wifi in airplane mode. I could not text or send/receive emails (same problem I had in the past). So I did a hard reboot of the phone while still on the ground, and then when I logged into the plane's wifi again, I was able to text and send/receive emails. BTW, you do have to turn on wifi calling in order to text. This was on American Airlines.
Can you send and receive texts on your home wifi? If not, it could be a problem with the phone.
I was able to quickly solve this problem by turning wifi calling off and back on
