One of the things that has been a both a blessing and curse for me has been the lack Internet on flights.
Every flight I take I am reminded how much I have become tied into a network. It seems that each trip I try to grab new email, a website or do an SSH connection before remembering that for one reason or another, on the ground or in the air, that I can't.
Fortunately there are industrious types out there that have fixed this problem for me.
The foundation for the solution has been in place since 1991 with a simple napkin.
From the History of AirCell at www.aircell.com: "The idea for Aircell began in 1991 in a barbecue restaurant in Denison, Texas, where company founder Jimmy Ray first made sketches on a paper napkin for an affordable telephone system for airplanes. Ray's subsequent investigation of the market and exploration of alternate technologies resulted in the formation of Aircell."
Since then AirCell has created a network of cellular towers across the US. The main difference between sprint, at&t, t-mobile or any other cellular carrier is the frequency and the direction of their antennas.
A traditional carrier will point their antenna towards the horizon. AirCell points their antenna towards the sky.
On the underside of the plane is placed an antenna. Inside the plane is a high end server.
AirCell even uses Linux: "With a Linux-based operating environment and standard connectors, other aircraft components and avionics can be connected to the AirCell system."
Wow, how cool is that?
Since Delta announced it was going to deploy GoGo Inflight Internet on its entire US fleet back in August of 2008 I have been hoping to find myself on one of these wifi enabled flights.
The last time that I flew out to BWI from Salt Lake City and got one of the coveted First Class upgrades, I had been told that I would have power (which there was, but the connection sucked) and wifi. Turns out that there was no wifi.
I knew though that it was going to simply be a matter of time since they were working their way through their fleet. The MD88 commuter jets were already done.
So you can imagine my excitement when the flight form BWI to ATL was on an MD88.
Not being sure if the next segment (the vast majority of time home would be from ATL to SLC) I had to take a chance to explore GoGo.
On the whole it was fairly useful, if overpriced.
So the nitty-gritty details:
Pros:
Gogoinflight.com was free.
Delta.com was free.
Download speed was over 2mbps.
Very little seemed to be blocked.
Seemed stable.
Available at and above 30k feet.
Cons:
Upload was around 300kbps.
SIP / VoIP appeared to be blocked. --> This could go into the pro section actually.
Cost was prohibitive.
Pay for one flight segment at a time.
Have to create an account.
Apparently there is some content filtering in response to employee concerns.
Not available for the whole flight, including being stuck on the runway.
The service(s) you are connecting to should be encrypted as the "hotspot" isn't.
Pricing:
Ironically GoGo hypes their pricing on their website as "down-to-earth". One of the things that I really dislike about their pricing is that, with the exception of the 30 day pass, they charge for access per flight. So if your flight is made up several flight segments, for instance going from BWI to ATL, wait two hours in Atlanta before flying ATL to SLC, well you get to pay twice and different amounts.
I have been struggling to determine who GoGo thinks they are going to get to pay for their service out of this deal. Clearly there are going to be people that pay for the novelty of it. Then there is going to be the highly wired business professionals that want to stay connected as long as possible.
Finally there will be the people that are on vacation and willing to spend the extra money to make the trip a little more bearable. These are the same people that will buy an $8 cold sandwich on the plane.
The price structure is going to be a bit prohibitive from most travelers and even the average, occasional business traveler.
GoGo uses the following pricing structure, again per flight:
Mobile devices on any length of flight is $7.95. Unfortunately not all phones (mine included) will let you turn off all radios except wifi.
Laptops and other devices on a flight shorter then 3 hours pay $9.95.
Laptops and other devices on a 3 hours or longer (regardless of the remaining length of the flight) pay $12.95.
For those that travel frequently you can pay $49.95 for 30 day unlimited access on one airline (only Delta or Virgin America). If you frequently ride both of those airlines you can buy a 30 day pass for each.
So in the end it was a very decent connection. In fact I found myself looking forward to having a better connection then in the terminal waiting to board. The price was a bit much and I wish I had known for certain that wifi would be available on the longer of the two flights. Of course if they offered a 24 hour pass instead of per flight payment I would have been all set.
If I was still travelling two to three weeks a month I might find it worth paying the 50 bucks for an unlimited access every month, but I don't and I would miss my alone time.
So for the time being I am going to resign myself to the fact that at 30,000 feet I MIGHT have the option of watching Hulu or working on that cross country flight, but won't whip out the credit card to quickly to pay for the experience.
http://www.aircell.com
http://www.gogoinflight.com
http://www.delta.com
Delta Announcement: http://aircell.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=86
Delta to Filter Internet from AJC: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2008/10/03/wifi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet
**Note: on 07/16/2009 made some minor grammatical and spelling updates.
Every flight I take I am reminded how much I have become tied into a network. It seems that each trip I try to grab new email, a website or do an SSH connection before remembering that for one reason or another, on the ground or in the air, that I can't.
Fortunately there are industrious types out there that have fixed this problem for me.
The foundation for the solution has been in place since 1991 with a simple napkin.
From the History of AirCell at www.aircell.com: "The idea for Aircell began in 1991 in a barbecue restaurant in Denison, Texas, where company founder Jimmy Ray first made sketches on a paper napkin for an affordable telephone system for airplanes. Ray's subsequent investigation of the market and exploration of alternate technologies resulted in the formation of Aircell."
Since then AirCell has created a network of cellular towers across the US. The main difference between sprint, at&t, t-mobile or any other cellular carrier is the frequency and the direction of their antennas.
A traditional carrier will point their antenna towards the horizon. AirCell points their antenna towards the sky.
On the underside of the plane is placed an antenna. Inside the plane is a high end server.
AirCell even uses Linux: "With a Linux-based operating environment and standard connectors, other aircraft components and avionics can be connected to the AirCell system."
Wow, how cool is that?
Since Delta announced it was going to deploy GoGo Inflight Internet on its entire US fleet back in August of 2008 I have been hoping to find myself on one of these wifi enabled flights.
The last time that I flew out to BWI from Salt Lake City and got one of the coveted First Class upgrades, I had been told that I would have power (which there was, but the connection sucked) and wifi. Turns out that there was no wifi.
I knew though that it was going to simply be a matter of time since they were working their way through their fleet. The MD88 commuter jets were already done.
So you can imagine my excitement when the flight form BWI to ATL was on an MD88.
Not being sure if the next segment (the vast majority of time home would be from ATL to SLC) I had to take a chance to explore GoGo.
On the whole it was fairly useful, if overpriced.
So the nitty-gritty details:
Pros:
Gogoinflight.com was free.
Delta.com was free.
Download speed was over 2mbps.
Very little seemed to be blocked.
Seemed stable.
Available at and above 30k feet.
Cons:
Upload was around 300kbps.
SIP / VoIP appeared to be blocked. --> This could go into the pro section actually.
Cost was prohibitive.
Pay for one flight segment at a time.
Have to create an account.
Apparently there is some content filtering in response to employee concerns.
Not available for the whole flight, including being stuck on the runway.
The service(s) you are connecting to should be encrypted as the "hotspot" isn't.
Pricing:
Ironically GoGo hypes their pricing on their website as "down-to-earth". One of the things that I really dislike about their pricing is that, with the exception of the 30 day pass, they charge for access per flight. So if your flight is made up several flight segments, for instance going from BWI to ATL, wait two hours in Atlanta before flying ATL to SLC, well you get to pay twice and different amounts.
I have been struggling to determine who GoGo thinks they are going to get to pay for their service out of this deal. Clearly there are going to be people that pay for the novelty of it. Then there is going to be the highly wired business professionals that want to stay connected as long as possible.
Finally there will be the people that are on vacation and willing to spend the extra money to make the trip a little more bearable. These are the same people that will buy an $8 cold sandwich on the plane.
The price structure is going to be a bit prohibitive from most travelers and even the average, occasional business traveler.
GoGo uses the following pricing structure, again per flight:
Mobile devices on any length of flight is $7.95. Unfortunately not all phones (mine included) will let you turn off all radios except wifi.
Laptops and other devices on a flight shorter then 3 hours pay $9.95.
Laptops and other devices on a 3 hours or longer (regardless of the remaining length of the flight) pay $12.95.
For those that travel frequently you can pay $49.95 for 30 day unlimited access on one airline (only Delta or Virgin America). If you frequently ride both of those airlines you can buy a 30 day pass for each.
So in the end it was a very decent connection. In fact I found myself looking forward to having a better connection then in the terminal waiting to board. The price was a bit much and I wish I had known for certain that wifi would be available on the longer of the two flights. Of course if they offered a 24 hour pass instead of per flight payment I would have been all set.
If I was still travelling two to three weeks a month I might find it worth paying the 50 bucks for an unlimited access every month, but I don't and I would miss my alone time.
So for the time being I am going to resign myself to the fact that at 30,000 feet I MIGHT have the option of watching Hulu or working on that cross country flight, but won't whip out the credit card to quickly to pay for the experience.
http://www.aircell.com
http://www.gogoinflight.com
http://www.delta.com
Delta Announcement: http://aircell.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=86
Delta to Filter Internet from AJC: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2008/10/03/wifi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet
**Note: on 07/16/2009 made some minor grammatical and spelling updates.
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