Look, Up in the Sky! It’s Wi-Fi!

By  |  Monday, June 1, 2009 at 7:15 am

Gogo LogoAt this very moment, I”m using inflight Wi-Fi for the third time in my life–and for the first time, it’s putting me in a good mood. The first time I did so was on a demo flight for the now-defunct Boeing Connexion service, and it essentially failed to work; the second time was on one of the last Connexion-equipped flights, and the fact that I knew it was going away put me in a melancholy mood. Even though Connexion, even when it worked, was kinda sluggish and kinda pricey.

This morning, however, I’m on a Virgin America flight with Gogo service. It’s six bucks for my flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and is quite speedy–YouTube is playing back more smoothly than it sometimes does via my home network. Virgin is the first carrier with an all-Wi-Fl fleet; it’s instantly become my default carrier on any route it travels. 

I should probably segue here into a sober rumination on the virtues of being disconnected and the downside of living in a world in which spending even 59 minutes (our flight time) without Internet access is a hardship. I’ll probably write one eventually, but for now, I’m happy. And it’s going to feel weird when I hear the plane’s wheels touch ground at  ourdestination and I have no need to seize my phone, fire up e-mail, and try to catch up…

 
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5 Comments For This Post

  1. Steve Rubel Says:
    June 1st, 2009 at 7:20 am

    I experienced it for the first time last week on Virgin from NY to SFO and will again today from SFO back to NYC. It’s life changing for frequent travelers.

  2. Daniel Brusilovsky Says:
    June 1st, 2009 at 7:35 am

    I used GoGo when I flew from San Francisco to Seattle, and it was great. Had working WiFI the whole flight.

  3. Disputatore Says:
    June 1st, 2009 at 7:53 am

    Don’t forget to deduct the time after take-off and before landing when they won’t let you have the table up.

  4. Harry McCracken Says:
    June 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am

    The biggest remaining issue with in-flight Wi-Fi: It’s domestic only. (Confusingly, Connexion was on international flights only.) I want internet access most when I’m in the air the longest–I’ll be glad when it returns to international service. Which it surely will eventually.

    –Harry

  5. Wireless Dude Says:
    June 4th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Every airline should do this. This will make the air travel in economy somewhat bearable.

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