In-Flight Net?
JetBlue Airways has decided it's going to start testing limited free in-flight e-mail and instant messaging for its passengers. JetBlue is testing this as other airlines are renewing their own efforts to offer in-flight internet.
General web surfing and e-mail attachments aren't going to be allowed due to the bandwidth constraints. Services on laptops and handheld devices that have Wi-FI access will be limited to the e-mail and instant messaging from the Yahoo Instant Messenger.
JetBlue is beginning its testing soon and will be using a wireless spectrum that first brought LiveTV bought from the FCC last year for $7 million (Jesdanun, 2007). The internet access will be using Wi-Fi instead of cellular signals and therefore does not violate the federal regulations, according to Jesdanun (2007).
Don't get excited just yet, though, because latops and cellular devices will still be banned during the takeoff and landing portions of the flight. According to Glenn Fleischman, there arne't any other airlines offering these types of services right now, but will probably be debuting them sometime next year.
This testing won't be limited to just JetBlue, however. American Airlines is also going to be among the carriers that are planning to test free in-flight based Internet.
Brad Garlinghouse of Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) says that the company built special, lightweight versions of its services to function on the JetBlue flights.
While this availability of in-flight access is exciting, the limited use of Yahoo! services could be somewhat of a turn-off to potential travellers. However, Chris McGinnis, editor of quarterly industry report Expedia Travel Trendwatch points out that travellers could have their corporate or personal e-mail forwarded to a Yahoo account for the travelling. (Jesdanun, 2007).
Source:
Jesdanun, A. 2007. JetBlue to test limited in-flight Net. Retrieved December 2007 from
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8TCA8800.htm.