More In Flight WiFi

Last week another airline joined the flying WiFi brigade. United.

So what!

Given the limited number of planes which GoGo is installed in, and the risk of an equipment change, the hype outweighs the availability.

With roughly two dozen planes in the skies with WiFi before the United announcement last week, it means that the chances of being on a WiFi plane are few and far between.

Southwest, the airline I fly more than any other, has only four planes with the service in their Row 44 trial.

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to use WiFi in the sky, but to really be something useful the technology needs to be installed and available on more jets and sooner.

You'll also note that most of the airlines (American and United) are launching the service between JFK in New York and either SFO or LAX on the west coast.

That makes me wonder if the coverage via the ground reception sites for other routes from Aircell are in place yet which would explain the phased in deployment as well.

Comments

[kaiman Otay]

I have wondered this for some time. Pretty convenient how all these planes are flying along the same narrow corridor. I think you could provision that route with just ten cells, not the full hundred or whatever. I reckon the full network would cost too much, considering Aircell are giving all these trial airlines the gear for free - where is the money going to come from to sustain a big company and a big network?