Come Fly With Me

Almost a year ago we wrote about the testing of Internet services in planes by JetBlue Airlines. Last month an American Airlines flight from JFK to Los Angeles started testing high-speed, in-flight Internet access to its flyers. Yesterday Delta Air Lines announced that it will soon start rolling out broadband Wi-Fi access for its entire domestic mainline fleet of more than 330 planes. The Delta access will cost $9.95 on flights of three hours or less and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours and Delta expects Wi-Fi to be available on all its domestic mainline planes by the summer of 2009.

Passengers with wireless devices will be able to access Aircell's ‘air to ground’ broadband network, called GoGo, but voice services will be barred due to federal regulations. In 2006 Aircell won an FCC auction of a thin sliver of spectrum of 3 megahertz split between up and down directions and capable of carrying up to 2 or 3 Mbps. Obviously the bandwidth is not huge and could soon be stretched but it’s a start and literally starts to open up the airways. The service is intended to be continuous handing off connectivity among towers Aircell has equipped across the US.

American has stated that it will not block or filter content while others such as Lufthansa have initially requested it and found it totally impractical as it blocked legitimate as well as targeted web sites.


Smartphone users might have an issue with Gogo as many Smartphone that include both cellular and Wi-Fi radios let the user use these selectively. However, as we previously wrote this week, due to the low life expectancy of the devices, Smartphone manufactures have the ability to quickly adopt to market demands.
As with many mobile technologies the US and Europe go their different ways. In Europe, Air France and RyanAir are testing a different system from OnAir.

The final issue is one that the airlines themselves control – their tiered class system. First class and business will no doubt get the facilities as standard but economy may be restricted to limited seats and this may be very relivant where a power connection is required on a longer flight as no only are these outlets often limited but they require a power adaptor.

We have written about the book being the ideal holiday reader and capable of surviving the riggers of the beach, pool and rays. The next marketing push for the current ebook readers was air travel. Well that looks like it may also be slipping away. Yes you can preload books and read them on a plane but let’s get real and ask how many people seriously read more than one book during a flight? The interesting position is the difference between the Smartphone and Kindle approach and the more traditional ebook services. If you wish to download a book in flight this appears to be both possible and practical in the near future and in the case of a laptop, Smartphone or Kindle it will go direct to the device. However the Sony works through an ‘umbilical cord’ tethered to Adobe Digital Editions and this starts to blow this download model out of the water.

WE take laptops and Smartphones on planes today and would enjoy having full connectivity and access to information and content but would we want to be taking a laptop, a ebook reader and a Smartphone onboard? We don’t think so.
Digital Publishing is not about ebooks and the current readers its about publishing, content and markets.

The Internet is arriving at Terminal 1.

The cabin crew will be coming among you to hand out your complimentaary , drinks and laptop connevctions. In the event of turblance please log off.

From next week several US airlines will start to test Internet service on their planes. JetBlue Airlines will offer a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one of its planes, and in the coming months several airlines American, Virgin America and Alaska plan to offer broader Web access.

The plan is to create wireless hotspots in the sky once the plane has reached cruising height. Virgin ,who were an early pioneer of in flight entertainment, plans to link the technology to its seat-back entertainment system, enabling passengers who are not travelling with laptops or smart phones to send messages on flights.
The question is whether the cat is out of the bag? How can you allow internet access and not VOIP services such as Skype and we are already facing the prospect of mobile calls. Imagine a long haul flight next to a chatterbox. However it looks as though the initial speed will be equivalent to dial up so will restrict many broadband services.

Will they or won’t they charge? A nominal sum of $10 looks on the cards but at a charge so low why not give it away?

Internet access offers everyone an opportunity to sell or connect to a consumer who is strapped into a seat and really is a captive audience. The opportunities for publishers and retailers is significant and the hand baggage check in queue will grow as everyone brings on board their laptops, Blackberrys, PDAs, mobiles, iPods etcs.

VOIP takes to the Skies?

eMarketer reports figures from the Yankee Group which estimates that 9% of all US households subscribed to VoIP (voice over internet) services in 2006, up from 4% in 2005. The number of VoIP subscribers in the US grew 125% in 2006 and now is around 9m. The report forecasts that the VoIP market will continue to grow significantly over the next few years.

This in turn leads us to question the roll of the mobile phone and the carrier services. Today I use Skype over my mobile phone and although there are limitations over the PC application phoning and receiving calls to international numbers has never been cheaper.

Its no longer a case of why we should be on Skype by why anyone shouldn’t be on it?

Now comes news that American Airlines Inc. will test in-flight Wi-Fi services across the U.S. starting next year. Other airlines including Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Southwest Airlines and Qantas are all reported to be planning to test similar in-flight technology. Passengers on American flights would soon be able to e-mail and surf the Web from laptops and handheld devices while primarily on transcontinental routes.

Two questions remain unanswered - the cost, we all know that airlines are not good at costing such services to their captive customers and whether they would allow VOIP services as voice calls in-flight may ‘disturb other passengers nearby’.

It appears we will be connected whereever we are.