I’m on a Virgin America flight about an hour west of Washington DC as I chat with a friend via instant messaging, update my Facebook page, send little notes on Twitter, watch streaming web video and update my blog. I’m even filing this column from the air.
This is the first time I’ve surfed the web from the air which, I guess, makes me a Virgin in-flight WiFi user.
The cost is $9.95 for the entire flight and the service is great. Considering that this is a six hour flight, I could stream 3 movies before reaching San Francisco.
The service is offered by GoGo which is also on American flights between NY and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami as well as some Delta flights. Unlike live TV programming on Virgin, JetBlue and a few other airlines, the internet service uses ground stations across the continental United States. According to the company’s website, “with nothing but air between these towers and your plane, you’re always getting the best connection” and so-far that seems to be true.
I’m getting 1.5 mbps download speed which is better than many DSL services. The bandwidth is good enough for me to have sampled some news videos on CBSNews.com, a movie on NetFlix.com and the Colbert Report on Hulu.com. It’s fast enough for Skype but, according to GoGo’s website, voice calls are not allowed. I tried Skype (before reading about the prohibition) and the person I called could hear me but his voice was garbled. I did this as an experiment but even if it worked, I’d avoid it for all but very short and urgent calls because it would distract fellow passengers.
Speaking of distracting, there are some etiquette “rules” that GoGo suggests passengers follow. They ask you to mute the sound or use headphones, avoid voice calls and “be an angel” and not to visit sites that might shock your neighbor. In other words, don’t risk exposing others to porn. Bloomberg has reported that American Airlines flight attendants have asked their employee to filter porn from the service. As far as I can tell, the service is not currently blocking any content on Virgin America but – via a live chat from the air – a Gogo representative .on the ground told me they are now filtering content on American Ailrines.
So far, this has been a first-class experience even though I’m stuffed into an economy seat. Mostly, it’s a way to make time fly on what would otherwise be a pretty boring trek across the continental United States.
