They landed in the same place.
Steve Borger of Gogo and Jim Huntoon of Viasat both put the practical threshold for “enough” cabin connectivity at roughly 25 Mbps of consistent throughput. Not peak. Consistent.
Borger’s framing: “If you’re sitting at somewhere in the 20 to 25 megabit, that’s about all you’re going to get from the ISP.” Huntoon’s was the cleaner line: “When you hit that 25 or 30, it’s more about consistency, reliability and having it everywhere you want. We have hit a plateau where this can deliver that consistent user experience.”
That convergence is more useful than most of what gets written about cabin Wi-Fi. It’s an admission, from two competing providers, that the speed war past 30 Mbps is largely marketing rather than experience.
But it raises the question the panel didn’t really answer: what about the operators sitting well below 25? And what about the operators paying for hardware that won’t actually deliver it anytime soon?
That’s where the field guide picks up. https://www.apcela.com/nbaa-panel-session-the-day-we-stop-talking-about-wifi-speeds/