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

Posted by Zonk on from the careful-stewardess-i-am-blogging-this dept.

"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.'"

4 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Re:About time this came around. by FunOne · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe you should try a bit harder to pick your flights & airlines. American Airlines has seat power on all of its airplanes.

    This should help:
    http://www.seatguru.com/

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    FunOne
  2. Re:I'd love to see... by pipatron · · Score: 3, Informative

    They don't need to block it, they just have to tell the guy on the phone to shut the fuck up.

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  3. Re:Gaming on a plane by Dynedain · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is absolutely no way that a laptop carried on a plane can simulate the sound of a real shotgun or rocket.

    Have you even heard a real gun before? I guarantee you that the air marshals have.

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    I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
  4. Re:Nice try, no donut! by donutello · · Score: 4, Informative

    100,000 x 4500 = $450,000,000 (You had one too many zeros)

    A simpler way to look at it, however: 6% interest on $100,000 is about $20 per day. If you depreciate the equipment over 5 years, that adds another $60 or so per day. If you figure that the average user will take about 2 flights in a day, you earn about $5 per user per flight. Your average airplane makes about 10 flights in a day giving you a potential customer base of 200 x 10 = 2000. You only need to sell to about 16 of those to pay for the capital costs. If you think you're going to get a higher attach rate than that (and I think you are), this is worth doing. Put in intangibles such as product differentiation and customer loyalty and you're far ahead of your costs.

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    Mmmm.. Donuts