Anuvu and Southwest are actively Blocking Private DNS on PAID $8 WIFI!

[DontStealMyNuts]

Starting this year, SWA and Anuvu have started actively blocking private DNS even AFTER you’ve paid your $8 and the connection is established. Why?

Why does SWA and Anuvu insist on SPYING on its users even after we’ve paid our $8?(multiple now I’ll add on the same journey)

And to be clear….NO. This is not a complaint about being blocked PRIOR TO payment. This is SWA and Anuvu wholesale blocking any private DNS even after payment. This has occurred on both android and iOS, so no, this is not user error

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[floridaguy]

File a dispute on your credit card indicating that the wifi did not function and you will have the charge removed.

[SoCalFlyer97]

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@DontStealMyNuts wrote:

Starting this year, SWA and Anuvu have started actively blocking private DNS even AFTER you’ve paid your $8 and the connection is established. Why?

Why does SWA and Anuvu insist on SPYING on its users even after we’ve paid our $8?(multiple now I’ll add on the same journey)

And to be clear….NO. This is not a complaint about being blocked PRIOR TO payment. This is SWA and Anuvu wholesale blocking any private DNS even after payment. This has occurred on both android and iOS, so no, this is not user error

.

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Hello-

Sorry to hear you had trouble with the inflight Wi-Fi. It looks like there's a conflict somewhere between the Wi-Fi and your DNS service. I don't think there's anything deliberate happening; just an incompatibility between the Wi-Fi and DNS services.

This forum is customer-to-customer and we won't be able to process any claims on this board. If you had trouble accessing/using the Wi-Fi after paying the fee, I would report it directly to SW Customer Service as they may be able to issue you a refund:

https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/email-us

Click on "Inflight Experience", "Inflight Entertainment/Services"

I would also mention the software that you use so that the SW IT team can possibly address the compatibility issue.

Hope this helps!

ps. Had some similar trouble too with my DNS software not working with the OAK airport Wi-Fi; logging into one of the airport's restaurants networks resolved it.

[stevenrollinson]

Southwest does not actively block "Private DNS". However, there are some things that we have to do that are required to make the portal function. Specifically, we control DNS results for anything having to do with "southwestwifi.com". Settings on your device that prevent this control (such as a private DNS or VPN) may prevent the portal from functioning. 

Considering the onboard environment, you will also experience some level of traffic shaping and filtering once connected to Inflight Internet. 

More information can be found in the Inflight Entertainment and Internet FAQs: https://www.southwest.com/inflight-entertainment-portal

[DontStealMyNuts]

If SWA and Anuvu's intent is not to block, then there is clearly a configuration issue on Anuvu's end. Someone messed with something in the last 2 months. This was not issue late last year flying SWA with the exact same setup/hardware that is now having an issue.

Private DNS (DoT and DoH) has been an issue across multiple flights (4 flights) over the last month or so even after paying the $8. 

And yes, *.southwestwifi.com is already an excluded domain for DoH and DoT traffic, so getting to the portal was never an issue, but once traffic routes to either a DoH or DoT Private DNS server, it's blocked on Anuvu's end. 

[floridaguy]

I really don't know why this continues to be a debate.  File a dispute with your credit card carrier and let the lack of connectivity be Southwest's problem.

[Patricia78]

thanks for sharing..

[stevenrollinson]

Thanks for the additional information. We are getting our internet Tech Teams and our vendor teams together to figure out what has changed and see what can be done about it. I don't have a timeline at this point, but trust that we're on it!

As always, we're working behind the scenes to give you the best experience that we can. If you ever have a poor connectivity experience you can always request a refund of your internet purchase by submitting a complaint in the Southwest Help Center: https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/email-us

[floridaguy]

With all due respect, you can do a search on this board for wifi issues and have an endless trail of posts.  Frankly, it doesn't work.

My suggestion is to track the amount of usage per device and if the usage suggests that they have not used much bandwidth, refund their money under the assumption that it was not used and used to its ability.

That solution could be implemented TODAY and applied to all usage in the last six months.

[bec102896]

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@floridaguy wrote:

With all due respect, you can do a search on this board for wifi issues and have an endless trail of posts.  Frankly, it doesn't work.

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Southwest recently has started upgrading the Wi-Fi so all of those old post mean nothing these days because it’s a different provider or upgraded version of the old provider. If you would actually look most of those Wi-Fi complaints were before this year or late last year the Wi-Fi is much better than it was in 2022 or early 2023 sure from time to time it doesn’t work, but guess what it’s life things break delaying a flight for Wi-Fi would be silly Maybe if the Wi-Fi is down they should just turn off the system completely but then you would complain that you can’t watch a movie so they would be at a loss with you either way because there are many times the Wi-Fi was down but the Entertainment portal still worked. Filing a lawsuit to speeding a charge are all silly. Just send an email and they will probably refund you unless you’re abusive with asking for refunds handle it like an adult not a child and usually you will have better results