Aircell, the company behind American Airlines and later Delta’s in-flight Wi-Fi services, has just signed up Air Canada to be the next airline to offer its passengers the web in the air via Gogo. They’ll soon begin fitting their Airbus A319s with the necessary gear, and the service will begin on select flights that cross the border to the south starting in the spring of 2009, guaranteeing no Canuck is without live NHL score updates and news about their bad-arse socialised health care for more than a few minutes at a time. Phew.
It’s a rule as old as time: tell a bunch of geeks they can’t do something, and they will find a way. Any way. Thus the Flash-based Phweet trick to get around Aircell and American Airlines’ ban on VoIP using their Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service. Now, Aircell has responded with a light wrist-slapping statement.
The folks at Aircell, providers of the Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service that launched on American last week, have admitted that the ban on video and VoIP chats via Skype and other clients is not bandwidth related, it’s for the sanity of everybody else on the plane (much like the in-flight calling ban that’s started to float around Congress). Well, after the first few days of the service, Andy over at VoIP Watch has found a backdoor via the Twitter-based VoIP app Phweet that allows for chatting from 35,000 feet. If you must, read on for the details.
If you’re flying on an AA 767-200 from NYC to San Francisco, Miami or Los Angeles, you can kick the tires of American’s new Gogo/Aircell in-flight wi-fi service for US$12.95 (the rate for flights over 3 hours). It’s the same provider Delta will be using as they roll out the service fleetwide starting soon. Let us know how it is from the air, Giz jet-setters.
Delta will join the other airlines using Aircell’s GoGo cellular data service, becoming the first of the U.S. biggies to announce concrete plans for a fleet-wide rollout. They’re starting with their 133 MD88/90s, then moving on to hit every plane by summer of next year. It’ll run you US$9.95 for flights less than three hours, or US$12.95 for longer flights. There goes our last possible Internet-free haven…I mean, yay! Read on for the full release:
Walt just tested GoGo, the in-flight Wi-Fi service, on a bunch of laptops and smartphones during a flight from San Francisco to Denver. The service distributes, via Wi-Fi, a high speed mobile phone data signal pointed at airplanes, which Mossy rated at around 600kbps down and 250kbps up. This was quick enough for Walt to browse the web, send emails with iPhone rumour attachments, and talk on IM to his ladies, but it couldn’t keep up with streaming video on Xtube Hulu. Also, VoIP is blocked, and mobile calls aren’t possible either. Still, Mossy thought it did well enough for someone who can’t stay off the grid for a few hours. GoGo costs US$10 for flights under three hours, and US$13 for longer ones. It’ll begin rolling out in the next few weeks on American Airlines, with Virgin soon to follow. [AllThingsD]
