On July 1st, Southwest begin allowing customers to stream free live TV and on-demand television shows on every internet-enabled flight.  When the service launched they did not announce an end date and there was some murkiness on which devices would work.  Well the great news is that it is still free a month and a half later with no stated end in sight and every device that can connect via Wi-Fi has access to the free live streaming and on demand TV content.

It always surprises me how few people actually use the free service.  I think a good chunk of people still don’t understand it is complimentary to all passengers.

Keep in mind you will need to be on one of Southwest’s planes fitted with Wifi (~75% complete) to get in on this free promotion.  As always, you can check Wifi availability on your next flight here.

My experience with live streaming TV

I pondered in a previous post if all the bandwidth that isn’t being used for the excruciatingly slow inflight internet was reserved for streaming TV and my experience shows that to be true.  The live streaming TV is fantastic.  The picture quality was consistently high with no skipping.  They had 14 live channels covering a lot of the most watched national and cable channels including NBC, HGTV, NFL Network and more.

The bottom line

The only downside here is that I have gotten so used to enjoying the free TV onboard Southwest flights that when they inevitably pull out the rug it will be a sad day for me.