Though Qantas has toyed with in-flight Wi-Fi in the past, both it and top domestic competitor, Virgin, have been coy on future plans…until now. Qantas has told Australian Business Traveller that it’s on the cards, and the same site reports that Virgin is “evaluating a number of entertainment options, including Wi-Fi.”
However, ZDNet says it’s confirmed that new Wi-Fi service Virgin is currently testing is actually only for in-flight movie and music streaming. Bummer. Surely it’s only a matter of time?
Vron
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 7:14 PMOne Word: Expensive
olearymo
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 8:42 AMSo… streaming from where to where? I don’t get it. Streaming from the onboard computer to your seat? Is wifi really necessary for that?
Lee
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 9:39 AMnope… streaming from entertainment server onboard to your mobile/tablet/laptop.
Richard
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 11:26 AMYeah, but you still can’t use an ipod on takeoff or landing as it my interfere with the equipment.
When is someone going to challenge this BS?
Jack
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 12:54 PMIt’s there in place to prevent people from listening to their ipods and ipads while the crew give out safety demonstrations and instructions.
Ian
Monday, September 5, 2011 at 4:13 PMIt is there so that they have your attention while they are taking off an landing mostly.
If you have an ipod in and listening to it – you might not hear that something is going on.
Yeah I know it is a little thing, but yeah.
Dan Warne
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 11:46 AMThe ZDNet story is unfortunately wrong… I reconfirmed with Virgin yesterday that they definitely -are- looking at Wi-Fi for internet access.
As I understand it the only confusion was over the word “trialling” vs “evaluating”. Virgin said it was evaluating inflight internet systems and has planes with satellite connectivity in its fleet now, but does not have any actively hooked up to inflight internet yet.
How that message got portrayed to ZDNet as “Wi-fi for inflight entertainment only” I don’t know…