Wifi Revolution

American Airlines officials say they are taking the experiment with in-flight Wi-Fi "out of the trial stage," and have decided to install Gogo Inflight Internet on more than 300 domestic aircrafts over the next two years. It will install the Aircell system on its domestic MD-80 and Boeing (News - Alert) 737-800 aircraft fleets, beginning with 150 MD-80 aircraft this year.

American launched the Gogo service last August, providing it to customers traveling on 15 of American's Boeing 767-200 aircrafts, "primarily on nonstop flights between New York JFK and San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami," company officials say. The price for the Gogo service ranges from $7.95 to $12.95 based on length of flight and whether the device is a handheld PDA or a laptop computer.

 

Dan Garton, American's Executive Vice President-Marketing, says the six-month trial offered  to customers gave the airline "the ability to study customers' willingness to take advantage of high-speed, on board connectivity and to gauge how the service performed technically in a variety of settings over an extended period of time. We are pleased that the results were positive and that we have decided to move forward."

Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check e-mail, send instant messages, access a corporate VPN and more. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones and handheld PDAs, open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground system, which uses three small antennas installed outside the aircraft and connects to Aircell's nationwide mobile broadband network.

Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet, e-mail and VPN access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol service use will not be available.

Last November, according to industry observer Marguerite Reardon, Virgin America teamed up with YouTube (News - Alert) for its big coming-out party for its Wi-Fi in the sky service, launching Gogo Inflight Internet service on November 22 in a flight over San Francisco.

 

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