A report by Computerworld reveals that as many as one-third of all U.S. flights have Wi-Fi Internet capability now making several flights Wi-Fi friendly. The report says that there is one of every three domestic planes that offer the feature of flying the friendly skies of Wi-Fi.
The de-facto in-flight service provider for the majority of the U.S. carriers is Aircell. It was found that Aircell’s 968 Gogo-enabled aircraft actually numbers to an estimated one-third of the 2,800 U.S. planes that are operating today. This poses a big question to the public as to who are the big carrier winners and losers when it comes to this issue because surely there are several interested parties. At a price that ranges from $4.95 to $12.95, passengers can have access if you have heard that Virgin America and AirTran actually offer on-board Wi-Fi – this is true for every single flight in their fleets.
The New York Times made a report that Delta is one biggie on this as it wins for having the largest Wi-Fi equipped fleet. Nearly all of its planes that numbers up to 500 actually offers Gogo-based Internet access, the report says. Joining the bandwagon of this Wi-Fi friendly flights are Continental Airlines and JetBlue. They are now on the process of testing Wi-Fi for their planes respectively. And along with the craze comes also a mixture of all other carriers looking into Wi-Fi availability.
Not all airlines however are in a better standing as of this time just like for instance the Southwest’s fleet. Among their 540 planes, only 6 have Wi-Fi capabilities but they bear the mission of having all of their planes outfitted for every single one to be capable of wireless internet connectivity come early 2012. With a similar fate is Alaska Airlines where only select flights have on-board Internet access to date. However, they too plan to outfit their whole fleet for Wi-Fi capability come the end of this year.
There are two major Wi-Fi providers and they are actually caught in a combat of winning over the other when it comes to having the biggest carrier interest. It has been an on-going encounter between Aircell and Row 44 ever since Row 44 has had a debut on U.S. flights in the year 2009. Some airlines like Alaskan Airlines claims that Aircell have a cheaper offer as they declare that there are no regrets in selecting Aircell’s Gogo in-flight service. This is in comparison with Row 44’s Ku-band system. Aircell has actually a head start of two years in the competition.
Still, there is a great debate as to which among the providers is actually better given the Aircell’s ground-based system and Row 44’s system that uses an antenna mounted to an aircraft that links the plane up to the HughesNet satellite internet service.
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