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American Airlines To Offer Wi-Fi In Planes
Firmafest writes "In USA Today there's a scoop that American Airlines will offer Wi-Fi on domestic flights. Price is approx. $10 to get connected. Being a frequent international flyer I hope this will catch on. The LA Times reports that the cost is about $100,000 to equip a plane. While that number seems high, it will probably be worth it. If I had a choice between two flights both equally good, I'd pick the Wi-Fi enabled one." The article also says that JetBlue and Southwest Airlines are at least experimenting with Wi-Fi access aboard, while Delta already offers it.
...we need the cash.
Ooh does this mean i can torrent films whilst on the plane rather than needing to plan my entertainment beforehand
They fitted George Orwell's coffin with rollers so he could turn over more easily years ago.
Virgin america also has WiFi on at least some of their flights.
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Not sure why this article is 'news', its been tried before and even Boeing could not make it cost effective even when dealing with new-build aircraft (no retrofitting needed, lower costs than dealing with airframes that have already come off the production line) - the service was discontinued at the end of 2006.
Interestingly enough, Connexion was a partnership between Boeing, American, United and Delta airlines. I wonder what has changed...
Backelin said the Internet access will be filtered to block pornographic sites -- the airline at first said it wouldn't do that, but relented after hearing complaints from customers and flight attendants. And American won't allow voice-over-Internet phone service, to keep chattering to a minimum.
I don't fly often, but I'm going to start watching the sky for falling AA planes. With all the radio waves in planes introduced by offering wifi, there's no way the planes won't crash. At least, that's what the FAA has been telling us for as long as I can remember. Now that there's a way to make money from using radio devices in the cabin, there doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.
You are going to be disappointed as an international flyer as internet access will only be deployed on domestic MD80s and 737s.
For flights over water, a satellite based system would be required and American Airlines is not using a satellite based system.
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I'd choose the flight with less chance of having someone sitting next to me with their "personal" music player loud enough for me to sing along.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
Let's hope they ensure that the network is completely separate from the aeroplane's system network.
Interestingly enough, Connexion was a partnership between Boeing, American, United and Delta airlines. I wonder what has changed...
Connexion was primarily on international flights, and used satellites. It was a lot more expensive to install ($500,000 per plane) and significantly more expensive to use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connexion_by_Boeing
" If I had a choice between two flights both equally good, I'd pick the Wi-Fi enabled one."
Yeah, same here, given a choice between two flights both equally good, I would choose the one with the swimming pool.
if they'll call it "Wi-Fli"?
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
...that it's perfectly safe to operate your wireless devices inside an airplane, as long as you're paying the airline for the pleasure.
That you can't be without it for a few hours?
Never been on a plane, huh? Let me enlighten you:
People on a plane will do anything to distract themselves from the cramped space, uncomfortable seats, stale air, stale body odor, and bad food. Including paying out the nose for booze, headphones to listen to a movie, or internet access.
That you can't be without it for a few hours?
Yes
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
They've got a website - http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/help/faqs/inflight-broadband.asp - answering questions on their inflight wi-fi and their @alaskaair Twitter account - http://twitter.com/alaskaair - provides daily updates what flight #'s will have wifi.
Mind the gap...
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Read a magazine? Oh, that's right, printed words cause a severe allergic reaction in most people nowadays. I forgot, sorry.
What good is WiFi when most of the flights I fly on don't give me anything to plug my laptop in to anyways? I'd even consider paying a few dollars for electric service on a flight so I could plug in and use my laptop for the duration of the flight. As it is, my laptop run time on flights is strictly limited to the charge on my batteries before I get on the plane.
And if I'm going to use my latop with WiFi on, that would only drain by battery slightly quicker than without it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I just flew AA and they charged me $40 for two suitcases. $15 for the first and $25 for the second. I understand what they're trying to do here but the problem is that their flights show up as cheaper on search results. You can think of it as a $40 discount if you don't have any checked baggage or a $25 discount if you only have one checked bag....but the searches should reflect that.
The possibilities are endless.
They must have bought it at the Circuit City clearance sale marked down 50%.
Watch out for blackhat travelers!!
Just put it out there, if your wrong... you learn, if your right, others learn.
Psssst. Hey. You...yeah...you. Buddy. You DO realize you just asked that question on Slashdot. Right? You know? The place where a lot of people go who really like technology and the internet and all that?
AA has been offering wireless on several SFO <-> JFK flights for quite a while. And as another poster pointed out, Virgin is also offering this on many flights.
I hit speedtest.net from both a recent American Airlines flight and a Virgin America flight (Bonus: Verizon Fios and TWC stats, too!).
The connections from the flights were good enough to watch Battlestar Galactica on hulu.com. (I am a big geek.)
In both cases, Internet service was provided by Gogo.
--Sam
Who is going to help the clueless sales dweebs get connected?
No joke. $10 for airborne wifi doesn't sound so bad, until you think...
$10 for your 1-hour flight to Atlanta/Houston/wherever
$10+ for your 2-hour layover (most airports have wifi at $5+/hour these days)
$10 for your 2-hour flight to wherever
That's $30+ for your day's wifi. My monthly Internet bill isn't that much. I think I'll just bring a book...
Seems like your in the wrong "age", there where fears for interference but there are no real evidence that any of todays systems are affected by "normal" devices. Even if they where, the distance between the device and the instruments (most in the ends of the plane) is to far for the electromagnetic waves to do any difference.
Also the air is already filled with radiowaves, which is another proof for the "radio transmitters" thats not allowed.
Other than the fact that they are expanding the routes on which this is offered, I'm not sure how this is new news. Gogo has been offering service on trans-con American Airlines flights from LA to the east coast for at least 6 months now.
I've used it a few times, and it works OK. Speeds were reasonable (100-150KB download speeds, ping times comparable to mobile broadband, 150-200ms) and I think there was only 1 dead spot for a few minutes during the times that I was logged in. They did not block VPN access so you could conceivably use VoIP once you VPN, but I did not try this.
A link to the actual service (rather than USA today or a blog) would help too:
http://www.gogoinflight.com/
I was on a Southwest flight that was testing this out about a month ago, where it was free for passengers. I ran speakeasy's speed test on it, http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ , and got about 3000 kbps down, and something like 200 kbps up. I ran the test about five minutes after they announced that we could use the service, and it seemed like more than half the people on the plane had laptops out and were playing with the service, even though none of us knew that the service would be available until we got on the plane.
Delta already offers this service on many of its domestic flights. I've been using it for the last few months on my flight from Atlanta to Philly.
Well that's about 10 minutes.
There's another 4 hours to kill.
I fly GA aircraft and I've left my phone on before. Granted I'm not at 30K feet but I have gotten interference with my headset. It's an iPhone 3G and I think it switched over to EDGE. I was getting the typical EDGE pulse noise like you get on any speakers. So yes there is some issue with cell phones, especially when they drop to EDGE which the 3G ones usually do when they can't get 3G.
People are not that close to the cabin in commercial jets so the problem is less severe than what I was getting.
While I certainly welcome connectivity on the plane, once you offer it, unless you explicitly block Skype, YIM, and others, cellphones are no longer relevant as anyone can use VoIP. That means that people will talk for hours, so blocking cellphones to keep peace and quiet on the plane is no longer a valid reason. Given an opportunity, people will talk for hours, and will do so loudly.
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During a intercontinental flight a magazine won't do you much long. If you are a fast reader a standard paperback will be finished long before yo arrive, of corse that is if you are fortunate enough to be able to focus on something for more than 5 minutes at a time due to the annoying brat in seat 36A and the piss drunk idiots in the row behind you. At times like that internet access can be quite a neat thing to have as there are plenty of distractions (from brats and drunk idiots) that require little concentration, replying to /. comments for example. ;-)
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
Connexion was primarily on international flights, and used satellites. It was a lot more expensive to install ($500,000 per plane) and significantly more expensive to use.
I once payed $29.95 for Connexion for a 12 hour flight. Seems about the same as $10 for a domestic flight... maybe even cheaper
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...when you can hack and fly!
Gogo is old news.
3Mbps/Cell Sector will get saturated quickly. With the number of towers that AirCell (Gogo's owner) originally designed and with Virgin America buying the same service the useful bandwidth per aircraft will decrease. The key for Gogo will be putting more towers up and getting more six sector cells in place instead of the three sector setups they've put in most areas. What they won't tell is that there are gaps in the solution and it will take Gogo/AirCell awhile to completely fill in those gaps with more coverage. Also if you're crossing the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada range expect a bit of a service outage.
There are already things in place to clip bandwidth usage to minimize the effects of streaming and downloading in flight. They've also been putting things into place to prohibit VOIP on the planes but I doubt that they can every successfully clip every aspect of traffic folding and masking and prohibit it.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I'm sorry, sir, we can only offer local area network at this point.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Or picking up a paperback book.
Actually that's a relatively good price. A good many hotels charge $15-20 for a single hour of internet out there.
I don't know about you, I can't name a single magazine that'll last a 5-hour cross-continent flight.
So an international flight carries 300 passengers.
Lets say 15% pay for internet access - most of first and business class, plus a few in coach.
45 passengers paying $30 per flight is 1350.
The plane typically makes two flights per day. So that's $2700 per day in revenue.
It takes 185 days to turn over $500,000 cost of fitting. Assuming half the cost is for data, you can still pay for the installation in a year - or a little over is you include downtime.
Even if I'm vastly off in terms of use, it should still pay for itself inside a couple of years which is tiny in terms of the lifespan of a jumbo jet.
Are you kidding...I'm one laser pointer away from being a gargoyle. And with a proper investment from all of the U.S.'s major airlines, it wouldn't take a large adoption at this pricing level to make it pay off
Lets take a conservative estimate of the number of U.S. airline customers (including repeated business), say 500 million or so, and an estimate of the size of the North American fleet at 5000 planes. And lets suppose all major U.S. airlines follow this pricing model of $10 per flight.
So the cost of outfitting the North American fleet (at $100,000 per plane) would be $500 million (5k*100k), supposing half will not be equipped, $250 Million.
And the estimated gross income from those making use of the service 25% of the time (including those declining by choice or the service not being offered, and including those opting for the service on multiple connecting flights) would be $1.25 billion (.25*500M*10).
Heck, it might even make a good business model for an outside company to invest in upgrading the fleet in return for say 1/2 of the airlines fee...
-=Bang Bang=-
I buy & salvage commercial and corporate aircraft. Many systems used on smaller bizjets cost much more in USED condition than $100K. IMHO that's getting it done pretty cost effectively. All commercial / business aircraft parts are astronomically expensive, even for "off the shelf parts" used in other industries (e.x. Amphenol connectors, Textron valves, Eaton parts).
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
Got a lot done and wasn't distracted by e-mail or Web surfing. I'm sure I'd use WiFi if it were available on long flights, but there's also something to be said for uninterrupted concentration time.
Add a 1 to 3% fuel burn penalty for the life of that aircraft and recalculate. Satellite based internet requires a relatively large antenna that bulges off the top of the fuselage. Not aerodynamic, not green, not cheap, and not efficient. Not sure what if any fuel burn penalty there is for cellular based internet antennas.
I know rail and buses aren't terribly popular in the US. But, I'd be a lot more willing to consider slightly slower travel, particularly in the sub-500-mile range (Dallas-SanAntonio-Houston triangle, Chicago to MSP/STL/DET, Northeast corridor, LA/SF/Vegas) if I had power and consistent WiFi.
What the article fails to mention (or I'm assuming it fails to mention, since I didn't RTFA) is that coach seats are now so small, there are no room for your knees let alone working on a laptop. Flying is now pure hell for the husky gentlemen, unless I spring for the "Economy Plus" seats (when available) that have the legroom of the old normal coach.
you can get food on airplanes? Even the peanuts have stopped. US Air (and others) sell "boxed lunches" but they only bring enough for the first 10 rows or so, after that you are out of luck.
There is a huge difference between interference on your headset, which typically has wires running inches within your phone, and placing an electronic device on your antenna.
Yes, yes, harmonic interference is possible and all that, but simply put, your example does not in any way establish the point.
I will also point out I've gotten interference from an ipod on my passenger's headset through the com panel. In other words, an RF device is not required to generate interference though unshielded cables. But interference through the com panel does not mean navigational interference.
Heck, you're more likely to create interference of your whiskey compass by bringing in metallic objects, than you are to any other navigational aid. Should pocket knives be illegal too?
Every time I fly, I bring along a book or a magazine. When I bring out the laptop, I use it for work and I don't need WiFi.
So *this* is what all the hype I've been hearing about "Cloud Computing" is about?
That's a hell of a long flight! Maybe you should take the train next time.
Netbooks have changed. Why pay for wifi when your battery dies in just one hour?
But with a netbook, your batter lasts eight hours...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Unless your a fast reader. Seriously, I can finoish a 300 page novel in abnout 2 hours without trying hard.
Luckily I carry my iPhone with some (jailbroken) text file software and a stack of ebooks in plaintext :)
(yeah, jail broken. See, the trouble is is that a lot of books, even when plaintext, are over 700K, usually around 1M. ANd this size appears to be big enough to crash every text-reading app I could find in the App Store. Luckily I'd already jailbroken it, so I installed textReader and now I don't have to buy a kindle :D
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
I took a Southwest flight from LAX to Sacramento recently that had the WiFi.
As soon as they said they had it, I took an iPhone picture and uploaded it to Flickr, then I turned on my MacBook, went on GMail and looked through my contact list, then proceeded to Google Video Chat with a friend in Washington, DC. I pointed my MacBook camera out the window to prove I was in a flying plane! Interestingly my friend was on a new WiMax service in DC. The quality of service was pretty phenomenal!
All I can say is that WiFi in a plane is awesome, but I suspect not too many people were really using it on my flight, and as it becomes more typical I suspect there will be bandwidth contention.
Boeing's Connexion failed in large part because of bad luck. They introduced their Connexion service back in summer 2001 with large launch customers such as American, Delta, and United Airlines. Unfortunately a few months later you had 9/11 which financially crippled nearly every domestic American airline and brought deep-sixed Connexion's entire business plan. The company struggled to keep it viable for a while, but the small number of foreign airlines and shipping companies wasn't enough; they needed large airlines with heavy business traffic to keep the program viable.
...if it gets all those self-important jerks to put their stupid phones away and quit sharing their conversations with everyone on the plane.
I thought you couldn't have phones turn on cause of radio interference...wouldn't Wi-fi be doing the same thing as our phones and electronic devices?? I always knew it was BS, either that or we'll see alot of plane crashes.
The price should be included into the ticket.
This complete nice and dining for everything will only hurt them in the long run.
It's like going to a restaurant and having a carpet cleaning fee tacked onto your bill becasue they clean the carpets.
No, that is the CoDB.
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Probably not, as they're much smaller and don't have to track anything, being 35K up. Although as a GA pilot, I know that any disruption across the airfoil will generate drag (it just depends on how much drag is generated).
Yeah, well, we're talking American Airlines here, so that's pretty unlikely.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is nice and all but when will they start putting power outlets anywhere besides business and first class?
And words aren't printed on your screen?
But with regard to drinking on aircraft, you're a fool if you don't and a fool if you do. A drink will help to settle nervous travellers, but it will also dehydrate you worse than air travel by itself will, and that's considerably. Dehydration = hangover. YMMV and if you're Russian you might not notice.
It's for the tiny motor driving the laptop, honest!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I'm glad that they will be charging for this. I don't want to see base ticket prices go any higher.
Wi-Fi would help to pass the time during a flight. However, since domestic flights are typically short, all I need is an mp3 player and a book.
On a flight > 2 hours, I would buy a plane ticket from American for up to $50 more just for the privilege to surf the web during those two hours. There's only so much cached slashdot I can read before I want something live, or responding to emails while on the road, browsing forums, uploading photos or updating my personal website. After the $10 service charge, American has just gotten an extra $60 out of me on what's an essentially fixed cost flight for them.
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The vadge bastards. I thought French IBIS were bad, at 8 euros per day.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nope. I'm addicted to air though. And peeing. A real toilet junkie.
You just got troll'd!
There are two kinds of slashdoters. One kind change their underwear and socks weekly, whether they need to or not. The other kind don't wear any.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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The Fortune 500 company in Oregon that isn't Precision Castparts.
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Because I got tired of stepping on arrows.
It would have to be way more than worth it to make up for the $35 luggage charge. By the time you figure in the annoyance factor, the AA ticket needs to be at least $50 less than the competition before I would even consider it.... Wi-Fi or no Wi-Fi !
This news, combined with the new Skype application for iPhone, now leads to the inevitable -- the person next to you talking on the "phone" during the whole plane ride.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch