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Airlines to Offer In-Flight Internet Service
Ponca City, We Love You writes "JetBlue Airways will soon begin testing a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months, probably priced at about $10 a flight. A recent survey found that 26 percent of leisure travelers would pay $10 for Internet access on a two-to-four-hour flight and 45 percent would pay that amount for a flight longer than four hours. The airlines plans to turn their planes into the equivalent of a wireless hot spot once the aircraft reaches its cruising altitude but service will not be available on takeoff and landing. While the technology could allow travelers to make phone calls over the Internet, most carriers say they have no plans to allow voice communications."
They could easily block ports commonly used for VoIP and/or VoIP proxies. In fact, they could make all Internet access go through a proxy server, just like they do in a corporate setting. This is getting to be increasingly common in hotel Internet access.
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Some planes do have in-seat power. The Airbus A330-300 which I've flown to Europe many many times has in-seat power in coach. In fact, Lufthansa (Germany's national airline) had free wifi last year on their transatlantic Boeing jets. Not sure what happened to that service, but it was great...only problem was THOSE jets didn't have power. Just bring extra batteries for your laptop I suppose :)
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
But not on all planes. I've been on three flights recently, a 737, a DC-10 and a 767, none of of which had in-seat phones, at least not in coach. It's possible that first class had them on the 767, but I know that first class did not have them on the 737 (I sat directly behind first class). The DC-10 didn't offer first class seating.
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The phones seem to be fading away. I think they didn't make money on them.
) This has been tried before - Lufthansa? United? Wasn't popular.
Actually, it was very popular on Lufthansa. The problem was that Boeing (owned Connexion) wasn't seeing much ROI across all the airlines and couldn't keep the service running for its limited deployment throughout the carriers. US airlines couldn't afford to install it, generally.