From our front-page news:
A few airlines have already mentioned in the past few months their desire to offer Internet access on their flights, but Delta has gone ahead and put those to shame. After a predicted one-year rollout, Delta intends to offer WiFi on every-single plane in their fleet. The company needs new ways to drum up business, and I have little doubt that I'd try to get on a Delta flight myself, simply because of this addition.
Of course, what should be free never is, so for flights under three-hours in length, access will cost $9.95, while flights over three-hours will be $12.95. These prices are negligible if you really do have business to take care of, though. Time is money, and $12.95 for a 3+ hour plane ride will no doubt pay for itself for some people.
The service won't limit too much, but I'm sure VOIP is going to be filtered to deny access. What will be allowed is e-mail, IM, VPN, the web of course, and also SMS messages. I assume the latter will be allowed via an internal protocol, and not via your actual cell phone. While the completed deployment will still take an entire year, this is one feature that should be worth the wait. Now if only other airlines would follow suit.
As Aircell notes in its product literature, computer users are accustomed to having to pay for access to public hotspots (generally including those at airports), opening their wallets for several hours of access is unlikely to seem as aggravating as doing so for a blanket and pillow.
Source: Ars Technica
Of course, what should be free never is, so for flights under three-hours in length, access will cost $9.95, while flights over three-hours will be $12.95. These prices are negligible if you really do have business to take care of, though. Time is money, and $12.95 for a 3+ hour plane ride will no doubt pay for itself for some people.
The service won't limit too much, but I'm sure VOIP is going to be filtered to deny access. What will be allowed is e-mail, IM, VPN, the web of course, and also SMS messages. I assume the latter will be allowed via an internal protocol, and not via your actual cell phone. While the completed deployment will still take an entire year, this is one feature that should be worth the wait. Now if only other airlines would follow suit.
As Aircell notes in its product literature, computer users are accustomed to having to pay for access to public hotspots (generally including those at airports), opening their wallets for several hours of access is unlikely to seem as aggravating as doing so for a blanket and pillow.
Source: Ars Technica