[btaylor1]

[the piece pasted below appears on page 2d of the 1-30-2010 dallas morning news. i have never believed cell phones, or blackberries, or any other personal communications could interfere with flight navigation. maybe i'm wrong, but this development sure seems antithetical to the idea that a teeny tiny blackberry signal back and forth has anything to do with flight safety. this will be great also when emails can be sent and received while in the air, assuming the airlines don't still try to tell people to disable their blackberries. in any event, i hope some thoughtful and understandable guidance will follow.]


SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

Planes to get Wi-Fi

Full fleet to have service by 2012; work *to start later this year

By TERRY MAXON

Staff Writer xxx8201;

Southwest Airlines Co. said Friday it will begin installation of *Wi*-*Fi equipment on its airplanes in the second quarter and hopes *to finish within two years.

"We expect to install equipment on around 15 aircraft per month initially, with the goal of increasing that number to 25 aircraft a month as we ramp up the process," Southwest executive Dave Ridley wrote Friday on the carrier’s Nuts About Southwest blog.

"With this schedule, we estimate that our full fleet of more than 540 *planes will be outfitted with Wi-Fi service by early 2012," said Ridley, senior vice president of marketing.

Ridley said on the Southwest blog that the company will decide on pricing in the second quarter of 2010.

The Dallas-based carrier is using the technology from Row 44 Inc., a Westlake Village, Calif., company. Row 44 uses satellites to transmit the broadband signal to aircraft.

Its larger rival, Aircell LLC, uses ground-based transmitters on its Gogo system, which is being used by such carriers as American Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc.

Southwest, which announced two years ago that it would test the Row 44 technology on four airplanes, signed a contract with Row 44 this week to buy and install its equipment.

"Row 44 is thrilled *to start equipping the Southwest Airlines fleet with broadband," said John Guidon, Row 44’s CEO. "We could not be prouder than to have this market leader in passenger value as our first U.S. customer."

[penguin3107]

There's been in-flight WiFi available on planes for a while now.
This might be new for Southwest, but it's certainly not a groundbreaking development.

[btaylor1]

thanks for that comment. i'm actually interested in the issue i raised, rather than the "groundbreaking" issue you commented upon! do you have any information about the kind of guidance provided for blackberrries, understandable or not, on whatever airlines may already offer wi-fi service while flying? thx for infomation you might be able to supply. best regards, bt

[Wavester]

I've used my blackberry successfully on American Airlines using www.gogoinflight.com.

Email and surfing is fine; however it uses the hotspot browser and Blackberry developed apps (facebook, appworld, etc) do not work on WiFi (as expected)

[btaylor1]

interesting (and thx). do the AIRLINE COMPANY'S passenger instructions address blackberry use and expressly permit (or forbid) use of blackberry over the provided inflight wi-fi network? appreciate your response

PS, a much smarter (than me) friend sent me this interesting (if not completely documented) article.

Mobile phones on aircraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

seems like the whole fight is over cell phones, not specifically blackberries. if the arguments "against" cell phone use prevail, i'd still like blackberry use otherwise to be permitted over inflight wi-fi networks. but what i fear is the AIRLINE COMPANY passenger instructions (and perhaps the relevant regulations also) will not focus on this distinct issue, which (would-be law-abiding) business flyers need addressed expressly and understandably.

[RickCharles]

Anyone else remember the old days when the first generation blackberry's would work on planes, especially as you flew over larger populated area's. The good old days.

[CanuckBB]

I don't want cell phones to work on planes. Last thing I need is to stuck next to a loud mouth on a cross country flight.

Nobody needs to be that 'connected'.

[btaylor1]

i don't really care about phone. just e-mail and browsing. by the way, just today i saw this new announcement on the particular airline company's website

http://www.blogsouthwest.com/blog/it...ES000000100206