U.S. Airlines to Offer In-Air Wi-Fi

"Within the next year, US Airlines are going to be offering Wi-Fi service onboard flights. VoiP calls will be banned initially, but the article mentions that lifting the ban on cellphones may still be a possibility. 'AirCell will install equipment on airliners that will act as a WiFi hotspot in the cabin and connect to laptop computers and devices like BlackBerrys that have WiFi chips. In all, it will cost about $100,000 to outfit a plane with less than 100 pounds of equipment, and the work can be done overnight by airline maintenance workers, AirCell says. What makes the service particularly attractive to airlines is that they will share revenue with AirCell. The service will cost about the same as existing WiFi offerings. Mr. Blumenstein says it will charge no more than $10 a day to passengers. It will also offer discounted options for customers and tie into existing service programs like T-Mobile, iPass and Boingo. Speeds will be equivalent to WiFi service on the ground.'"

About time this came around.

[Kranfer]

I can't say how happy reading this made me. I tend to travel a lot, and as such, I never get to use my laptop in flight because really... airlines suck at technological upkeep. out of the 25 flights I have taken in the last 18 months, I have been on ONE plane with some sort of airline adapter to plug into for power... Hopefully now when I get into first class I will be able to be online, and actually have power to keep my energy hungry machine going for awhile. Woohoo!

$10 a 'day'?

[ncohafmuta]

$10 a day? How many flights do they think people take in a day? I mean, i don't know what the current average flights per day for 1 person flying is, but i don't expect it to be higher than MAYBE 1.5.

How about $5 per flight? How about a checkbox on the reservation website to include it in the ticket price of each leg? How about the username/password sent to you with your confirmation/receipt?

-Tony

Re:Laptops and phones on planes

[Belial6]

I have a hard time believing that. If a WiMAX connection messed up airline naviagtion, the towers on the ground would be screwing them up whether a device was on the plane or not. Now, I know that they are not a definitive source of info, but the Mythbusters episode where they tried to interfere with an planes instruments with cell phones and other radio equipment, they showed that it is just not going to happen. They had to do some pretty serious work to get the plane's equipment to a state that it could be affected by non-intentional interference. Look at it this way. If you could crash an airplane by hitting it with consumer level radio waves, don't you think we would be seeing a lot more planes going down? Why take a shoe bomb on a plane. Just turn on a battery operated radio transmitter.

Doesn't Jetblue offer this already?

[stefanlasiewski]

A few months ago we were driving up I-5 in California.

We were stuck in a traffic jam on the road, a good 20 miles from the nearest town. I pulled out my laptop to scan for wireless signals, and see exactly how 'isolated' this area was.

Surprisingly, I found several Access Points with names like 'JetBlue1203' and 'JetBlue1609'. These signals would start at low-strength, the signal would grow stronger, peak for about 5 minutes, and then drop off in strength--- almost as if they were coming from an Airplane overhead.

I suppose these AP's could have come from some other car on the road; but people generally don't run Access Points in their Car.

Traffic was at a standstill--- if the signal was coming from a nearby house or from a car on our side of the road; I would expect the signal to remain level for a longer period of time.

If the signal was coming from a car on the opposite side of the road, I would expect the signal quality to rise and fall quickly. In fact, I could detect a number of 'Ad-Hoc' wireless signals from some misconfigured Laptops-- those signals would zoom by pretty quickly (other side of the road), or remain stable (My side of the road).

I never investigated these further, but I always assumed these 'JetBlue####' Access Points were from JetBlue Airplanes, and I was lucky enough to be within line-of-sight of these signals. The airplanes were a few miles above us, which seems pretty distant for a Wifi signal... But still these Access Points had names like 'JetBlue'. What the heck were they?

Re:About time this came around.

[kkwst2]

Umm, no. I flew 4 times in the past two weeks on AA. One of them was an America West flight. But the rest were regular AA. None of them had seat power in coach. Maybe 1st class.

Re:Sweet... just what I need...

[vertinox]

A jerk talking on his cellphone while I'm trying to enjoy a quiet plane ride.

Personally, I'd rather have a cell phone jerk on a plane sitting next to me than a screaming child ten rows away from me.

Of course with the "THINK OF CHILDREN!" attitude, no one throws unruly children off the plane. Oh wait... They did once [msn.com]

But I personally wish people they would have an airline that allowed only those 10 or older and charge a bit more. I don't know why movie theaters do that either...

So they've been lying to us?

[gsfprez]

Which in the hell is it?

Are wireless devices going to cause the plane to crash or not?

If i can cause the plane to crash using my iPod during takeoff, why can i now use WiFi during the flight?

This all goes to show you why the asshole that refused to put away his iPod or laptop when told to was always right, and the stewdresses and do-gooder sheeple sitting around the cabin ratting them out are the real dumbasses.

Re:I'm thinking about...

[bilbravo]

It's probably because most cell phone users think that today's technology still requires them to yell into the phone for others to hear them. :-)

Re:I'm thinking about...

[KurdtX]

Sounds a lot like the argument die-hard smokers make about their "right" to smoke.

Yes, you could issue earplugs to everyone, but why should they alter what they're doing because you're being offensive? If you happen to riddle your speech with profanity, and go to a grade school, the accepted solution is not for you to expect all the children to wear earplugs, it's for you to recognize the social norms of the environment you're in and modify your behavior to match.

Of course, why is the guy next to you an ass for being bothered by your behavior? He's not doing anything offense, he's reacting to something you're doing he finds offensive.

You don't have a right to talk on a cell phone, and you do have a responsibility to your fellow humans.

Re:Laptops and phones on planes

[run_w_xcors]

I actually heard a pilot come on the loudspeaker and tell someone to turn their phone off before. Now, it could have just been a ruse, but he said it, so it's possible it does cause some kind of problem with radios (probably more along the lines of that handshake noise close to speakers than jamming).

I've landed and noticed my phone was on and we didn't fall out of the sky on the way, so that's good news.

People trying to figure out what happened during 9/11 flight 93 noted that most calls fail from airplanes at altitude anyway.

Will people be loud talking on a mobile on the plane? You ever try to hear anything on a plane? Especially in coach? Imagine that, coupled with bluetooth headsets, coupled with normal loud mobile talker jackassery and it's a major mess (and yes, I'm a proponent of earplugs and noise cancellation). We should just be more like the Japanese and just not tolerate it as a society.

Re:You mis-translated from PR-speak

[timeOday]

I doubt the connection will be good enough for VOIP, but I also doubt they can block it. They would have to prevent all secure communications. That would exclude email (yes, at least 99% of business are smart enough to require VPN or at least ssl for email access).