United To Be The First Domestic Airline With WiFi In The Sky
from the finally... dept
In 2001, a bunch of US-based airlines bought into Boeing's vision of internet in the skies. However, in the wake of September 11th, 2001, they all pulled out of the project to focus on things like, well, surviving. Boeing did still manage to sign up foreign airlines, but the US airlines all managed to avoid offering real internet access in the skies. When they did offer any kind of internet access it was extremely limited and ridiculously pricey. However, it was only a matter of time before US airlines jumped on the surf-while-you-fly bandwagon, and apparently United now has regulator approval to offer real WiFi in the sky. The good thing for the airlines, of course, is that more people now have WiFi equipped laptops, which should increase the demand for such things. What's not at all clear, though, is how United intends to price the service, and if it will be as ridiculous as many people expect. Considering that the plan is to piggyback the data on the ridiculously over-priced seatback phones, it wouldn't be surprising at all to find this service priced out of usefulness for most people. To be honest, it's a bit surprising that some of the more innovative domestic airlines weren't the first to move on WiFi in the sky -- but hopefully this jumpstarts others to get into the game at more reasonable price levels.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Ad hoc
[ link to this | view in thread ]