UPDATED 17:00 EST / SEPTEMBER 19 2012

NEWS

In-Flight Wi-Fi: More Expensive, But Much, Much Faster (No Thanks To Gogo)

It’s fair to say that since its introduction four years ago, in-flight Wi-Fi hasn’t exactly ‘took off’ in the way that people would have liked.

Fact is, most airlines around the world simply don’t offer in-flight Wi-Fi to begin with, and those that do (mostly US airlines) invariably use the provider Gogo, which doesn’t exactly offer the slickest of connection speeds.

Worse still, it seems that Gogo has decided to up its rates somewhat. Paul Carr of Pando Daily reported that on his Virgin America flight from San Francisco to JFK yesterday, he noticed a steep hike in Gogo’s charges – it seems that the provider has done away with full flight passes in favor of a flat, $10 per hour charge, which is pretty pricey for most people, especially considering Gogo’s less than spectacular performance.

It’s uncertain at this moment if any other routes are now subject to the same flat rate charges, but according to VentureBeat, Gogo has admitted that it intends to “experiment with different pricing on various flights”, with the idea being that pricing will reflect demand on each particular route.

But just when you thought that in-flight Wi-Fi might be grounded, there’s some good news on the horizon. The Verge is reporting that JetBlue airlines is about to offer a newer, and much faster, in-flight Wi-Fi option, having just agreed a new deal with ViaSat. What’s great about ViaSat is that it’s allegedly much faster than anything Gogo can offer, capable of loading up ten websites a minute, and perhaps even fast enough to stream TV services such as Netflix.

Better still, JetBlue’s service is also going to be offered free of charge for a limited time when its rolled out early in 2013. With any luck, they might just force Gogo to rethink their new pricing scheme…


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