Runway Girl Mary Kirby has been covering inflight Wi-Fi for quite a while. She notices that while Wi-Fi is going free in cafes, parks, and hotels, the airlines want you to pay.
There’s obviously a cost in maintaining and expanding the air Wi-Fi network, but who should pay for it, the airlines or you? 50-50? Would you pay extra in a ticket to get Wi-Fi access? Maybe it should be free for longer flights?
Your answer in the comments. [Runway Girl]
Jamie
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 12:06 PMNow, I know nothing about this inflight Wi-Fi stuff from a technology point, but I can see that the difference between Wi-Fi in a cafe and on a plane to be quite huge. Namely, a Cafe will have a hardwired link for upstream which is why it is so cheap to run. However, you’d need a really long cable to offer it for the same price on a plane. So get around that limitation I’m sure they use satellites or something, which I hear a pretty expensive…