In Flight Wifi coming to the US

AirCell will be bringing Wifi access to airplanes soon. It will use the same frequency that air phone services used to use and provide transfer speeds the same as what they would be on the ground. Cost for the service is expected to be $10 for the day which depending on what you use it for it could be well worth paying that.

The service at first will not allow VOIP services such as Skype, Vonage V-Phone etc. although it would be possible and might be opened up at a later date. The equipment needed can be installed overnight for $100000 and the costs that airlines run in to for this would be made back with a revenue share with AirCell.

The services are set to be available with in 12 months allowing the whole cabin of the plane to be a flying hotspot for its passengers.

What are your thoughts on this? I am personally ok with this as time wasted travelling can be put to productive use. However, I am not keen on the idea of VOIP being enabled although it might be useful to have cheaper calls in another section of the plane for emergency calls home etc…

Via: WSJ

Speak Your Mind