Alaska Airlines is the late carrier to launch in - trajectory Wi - Fi , offer up rider on a specially equip Boeing 737 a service that use planet alternatively of cellular towers to connect the plane to the Internet .
The Robert William Service was to begin a 60 - daytime test lean on Thursday with a flight between Seattle and San Jose , California , the airline tell . Wi - Fi will be complimentary on board at the offset of the trial , and the airline business plans to use customer feedback to determine next pricing . At the end of the test , Alaska will determine its schedule for rolling out the service across its fleet . The airline serves more than 90 metropolis in the U.S. , Canada and Mexico .
Most majorU.S. airlines are either test in - flight Wi - Fi or offer it commerciallyon some carpenter’s plane . Most have chosen Aircell ’s Gogo arrangement , which links the onboard Wi - Fi meshing to the Internet over specialized EV - DO ( Evolution - Data optimize ) towers on the ground . Alaska , which routes many of its flights over water and wilderness , is using a satellite - based system from Row 44 .
Like other airlines , Alaska wo n’t get passengers mouth over VoIP ( voice over Internet Protocol ) while in escape . They are invited to browse the internet , send and incur e - ring armour and crying messages , access game and multimedia subject and habituate corporate VPNs ( practical private electronic internet ) . user can get at the internet with any Wi - Fi machine , including phones and portable media players . They will get an opening WWW pageboy with news , music , shopping and links to services on the airline ’s homepage .
rowing 44 ’s system , which uses rent planet transponder with coverage across North America , delivers about 4 M bps ( bits per second ) to the plane from the satellite and at least 256 K bps from the woodworking plane . That is shared among all users of the Wi - Fi overhaul , although not all exploiter are probable to be sending or receiving data at all times .
Alaska and Southwest Airlines , both Row 44 customers , had said they would begin trial last year , but both officially announce their examination launches this month . The deployments were held up by distinctive logistical and evolution holdup , as well as holdup get by the holiday travel time of year , say Wendy Campanella , Row 44 ’s director of business development . The service is operate on a temporary permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission but is in the final degree of getting a lasting licence , she said .
The current undulation of in - flight Wi - Fi rollouts , announce over the past two years , are taking figure amid tough clock time for the airline business industry as business and consumers cut back on spending . The toll of the deployment needs to be poise by enough passengers buying an bring - cost service , said psychoanalyst Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates .
“ Those formula may not be looking as good as they did six months ago , ” Gold said . In most cases , in - flight Wi - Fi costs about $ 10 or more per flight . In today ’s economy , “ It ’s not a trusted thing at all , ” he said . Several trial deployments have been delayed .
Southwest announced Feb. 10 it had installed the system on one plane and would equip two more by early March . The budget airline is partnering with Yahoo to provide a homepage featuring a escape tracker and content that is relevant to passengers ’ terminus .
