Virgin America launches inflight wi-fi

By Humphrey Cheung, published on November 24, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: , , | Themes: The Internet, Networking
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Are you sick of in-flight movies and magazines? Don’t worry because Virgin America is now offering wireless Internet on select flights. So you can now Bittorrent, play World of Warcraft and even email at 35,000 feet. Of course it’s going to cost you and be prepared to pay an extra $10 for flights less than 3 hours and $13 for longer flights.

The wireless service is run off of a shared EV-DO Rev and a connection, is provided under Aircell’s Gogo service and passengers connect with their laptop’s 802.11a/b/g cards to an open access point. The maximum advertised speed is 3.6 megabits per second down and 1.8 megabits/sec up. So far Virgin America isn’t filtering any traffic, but the company is using some traffic shaping to throttle down prolific users. Travelers still have to comply with the takeoff and landing rules of shutting off all electronics while at lower altitudes.

In a press event held on November 22, a select group of journalists flew in a Wi-Fi-enabled plane. Ryan Block, the former editor of Engadget, posted up screenshots of his transfer rate (916 kbps down/225 kbps up) and said the latency was around 200 to 500 milliseconds. He also tried out Bittorrent and managed to connect to eight peers.

Virgin America will test the Gogo service on a single Airbus A320, but will eventually expand the service to its entire fleet by April. Other airlines like American Airlines, Air Canada and Delta are either using Gogo or have plans to install the service. Southwest and Alaska Airlines will also install Wi-Fi, but will use Row 44 instead of GoGo.

Source - Engadget

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Anonymous 11/24/2008 7:28 PM
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cool
I would like to see more companies having wifi offered on their planes.

gm0n3y 11/24/2008 7:30 PM
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Nice, a bit pricey for such slow service, but not any worse than I'd expect for an airline.

Pei-chen 11/24/2008 7:34 PM
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$13 for wifi sure beats $13 of hard liquor you'll need to be entertained during the flight.

miltoxbeyond 11/24/2008 7:46 PM
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I'll pay only if they throw in an exotic masseuse while i surf the web.

mtyermom 11/24/2008 7:52 PM
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Surfing pr0nz at 30,000 feet still counts as the mile high club... right?

gm0n3y 11/24/2008 9:11 PM
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mtyermom :
Surfing pr0nz at 30,000 feet still counts as the mile high club... right?



I thinks its ok to count Palmela Handerson as a person.

computerninja7823 11/24/2008 10:50 PM
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im gonna fly to California in july i hope that this is on my flight..

mtyermom 11/25/2008 1:06 AM
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gm0n3y :
I thinks its ok to count Palmela Handerson as a person.



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