Southwest is teaming up with Row44 to bring Wi-Fi to the Southwest fleet. While they are not starting on the whole fleet yet they do have one aircraft equipped for testing purposes, they are planning to test this in three other planes as well. The article I was looking at did not say if they were going to charge for their services, by it likely. However this is good step, if this goes through the whole fleet it gives even more incentive  for businesses to use Southwest. 

One rather interesting thing mentioned in the article was that this program included a partnership with yahoo as well. It looks that the homepage to the Wi-Fi service and provide destination relevant content. The report made a big deal out of this point, this destination relevant content anyone can get by typing in a city name or zip code and get this “amazing” service. So although it sounds nice that they have a partner I wouldn’t think so much of this destination relevant content. The thing that actually sounded interesting was that yahoo was going to develop a flight tracking program that is described as showing points of interest along the route, with images from Flickr. Which sound could but I could be this with Google earth too.

Anyhow this Wi-Fi is a great step for an already great airline to expand it’s services and open it’s self to more business related travel. It will be interesting to see if this gets to the whole fleet or just ends in this dabbling. Kuddos to Southwest and good for Yahoo.

IN FLIGHT WI-FI: YOU’RE FREE TO SURF THE FRIENDLY SKIES

According to a report from Forrester Research, 45 percent of travelers would pay $10 for access to the internet for a 4+ hour flight.

OK, so there’s interest. But who offers what, for how much, and when will we be able to get it? See the chart below. Click on the image below to enlarge.

Chart updated 7/17/08 via new data available on the time lines and number of planes testing.

Above, you see two types of in-flight broadband products: air-to-ground and satellite.

Air to Ground

A network of 92 existing cell towers located across the United States provide data access.

Pros:

• Each tower offers a coverage range of 250 miles because nothing blocks the signal.

Cons:

• Think early internet speeds. 3-Mbps throughput.
• More expensive than satellite-based.

Satellite

Geosynchronous satellites beam data signals to the planes.

Pros:

• 30-Mbps (comparable to low-end DSL)
• Cheaper than air to ground

Cons:

• Trouble connecting during difficult weather.
• More expensive for the carriers to install.

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