Here we go again with the airplane has Wi-Fi but my car doesn’t complaints.

Yes, your car’s hotspot is not a tiny airline Wi-Fi system. Stop asking it to be one.

The plane is doing hundreds of miles an hour. The car is parked. Guess which Wi-Fi works?

Your car’s hotspot may have expired before the floor mats wore out. That subscription department is not a radio-frequency problem.

Here’s the part nobody wants to hear: the car still makes a Wi-Fi network. It’s the internet connection that wandered off. A Wi-Fi symbol on the dashboard does not mean the car has internet. Yes, the Wi-Fi bars can be full. Those bars are reporting on the few feet between your phone and the car.

The airplane has specialist antennas. Your car has a modem selected several product cycles ago. No, altitude isn’t the secret ingredient in airplane Wi-Fi.

Aircraft connectivity uses satellite or air-to-ground systems with purpose-built antennas, installed and maintained by specialists and paid for across hundreds of passengers. Your car’s hotspot is a cellular modem chosen years before the car was sold, with a small antenna inside a metal box.

The distinction worth explaining: Wi-Fi is the short-range connection from your device to the vehicle equipment. That equipment needs a separate connection to the internet.

A car hotspot usually gets its internet through a cellular modem. The modem and supported radio bands were chosen well before the car reached its first owner. If an older cellular network is retired, an older modem may lose service even though the rest of the car works fine.

Before blaming Wi-Fi, find out whether there’s any internet for it to share. Check:

  • Whether the car’s data subscription is active.
  • Whether the hotspot has cellular service, not just Wi-Fi signal.
  • What networks and bands the modem supports.
  • Whether that network still operates where you drive.

A modem does not receive a software update and grow a new antenna. Your car can keep running long after its modem belongs in a museum.