Wi-Fi on Airplanes, a Great Race

Though it is not yet clear how extensive the market is for in-flight Wi-Fi service, the competition to provide it is heating up. Row44, a California company whose in-flight Wi-Fi technology uses satellite connections, is emerging as an aggressive competitor to the market leader, Aircell, whose system uses ground-based stations.

Aircell said it had installed its system, called Gogo, on 460 airplanes, with technicians working night shifts at airline maintenance centers across the country. The company hopes to have as many as 1,000 domestic airplanes outfitted by the end of the year.

Two airlines, Virgin America and AirTran, now have Gogo on their entire fleets. Other carriers installing the Aircell system are Delta, American and United. Delta expects to have 90 percent of its domestic mainline fleet outfitted by the end of September.

Meanwhile, John Guidon, the chief executive and a co-founder of Row44, said the company was ready to begin installations, though it did not yet have a firm fleetwide contract. He estimated that Row44’s system would be installed on 500 to 1,000 airplanes worldwide by the end of 2010.

It would seem that Aircell is running so far ahead that competitors might be wary of entering the market. But Row44 is banking on making its domestic entry to the market aboard Southwest Airlines, which has been testing Row44 Wi-Fi on four of its more than 500 Boeing 737 aircraft.

Since June, after months of free trials on those planes, Southwest has been evaluating demand for the service at “various price points,” said a spokeswoman, Whitney Eichinger.

Alaska Airlines has also been testing the Row44 system on a single aircraft.
Southwest is not expected to make any firm decisions on whether to install Wi-Fi fleetwide until after the summer.

The big question about in-flight broadband service has always been whether enough passengers would pay for it, especially during a poor economic period

Full story

Photos by: www.livecrunch.com