Mobile post: Airplanes need Internet!

MG Siegler | April 30th, 2008

I’ve been flying on Virgin America up and down the California coast quite a bit recently. It’s great because of their in-seat entertainment consoles where you can listen to music and watch live television. There is a glaring absence however: the Internet.

If airlines and regulators can ever get their acts together and start offering the Internet on flights, the hassle of flying for me will go way down. I truly believe that it will even make me care less about leg room.

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  1. May 14th, 2008
    10:55 am

    Wi-Fi could be coming very soon to flights — and you might just get it free » VentureBeat said:

    [...] couple weeks ago in an audio post I complained about the lack of Internet availability on airplanes. There is some positive news on that front — it’s coming, and maybe in a matter of [...]

4 Comments

  1. April 30th, 2008
    11:54 am

    Erik Schwartz said:

    I’ve been on Beta Blue twice. Beta Blue is JetBlue’s internet enabled aircraft. Simply put, the technology isn’t ready for prime time yet.

  2. April 30th, 2008
    1:43 pm

    Cory B. said:

    This would be one step away from allowing cell phones on airplanes (”Very Bad Thing”). I have no idea how tight the bandwidth on a plane would be, but it’s reasonable to assume that VoIP would be functional. This would lead to people carrying on conversations via the connection. The day that I have to listen to the people around me on a plane carry on conversations of competing volume, I’ll start walking everywhere. Heck, probably be good for me…

  3. May 1st, 2008
    12:02 pm

    Sebastian said:

    “Simply put, the technology isn’t ready for prime time yet.”

    That’s wrong. Lufthansa offered Internet about 2 years ago for Cross Atlantic flights and it worked for me and others perfectly:

    “”Response from our Connexion users was very favorable,” he said. “It was a useful, affordable service, especially for those who wanted to use the downtime on long flights to manage their e-mail.”
    Customers paid $10 per hour or $27 for 24 hours, which could include connecting flights.
    http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/01/Lufthansa-consortium-in-flight-Internet_1.html

  4. May 5th, 2008
    1:47 pm

    nordsieck said:

    I think that power would be an even better option. I know they use it to differentiate between business and coach, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have too hard to set it up as a service… I know I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

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