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U.S. airlines are poised to push Internet access into hundreds of planes by the end of 2009, with love available via Wi-Fi as an aircraft rises in a high place 10,000 feet. You’ll never be wanting of touch again, for better or for worse.

The flying service has been in the works for a decade, and it has finally come to fruition with the at the outset of Virgin America’s 24 Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft equipped with Wi-Fi for regular passenger use this month. The airline says it expects all its planes to be in possession of Internet access by the second quarter of 2009.

Internet access has been available as a pilot test inasmuch as August on 15 of American Airlines’ planes, all cross-country Boeing 767-200s. Delta is planning a fleetwide launch soon, and Air Canada plans to install service that will work while in the U.S. Meanwhile, Alaska, Southwest, and JetBlue have services in diverse stages of testing or planning.

With the Net everywhere, the digerati may never be able get away from being connected, unruffled if they want to be.

For now, early reviews are unequivocal, even if early users are hard to discovery.

What Fly-Fi is good for

Gogo, the in-flight provider chosen through Virgin and American, is a furniture created by longtime aviation-telecommunications firm Aircell. It offers speeds comparable to lower-end DSL: as fast as about 2 megabits per sixtieth part of a minute (Mbps) from the Internet to the plane, and several hundred kilobits through second (Kbps) from the plane to the Internet.

Any device by Wi-Fi built in can access the network, so prolonged as it has a browser to handle the login process. This includes laptops, smartphones (in the way that long as their favose radio can be turned off), and some gadgets. Virgin America has power and Ethernet between each station in coach and at every first-class seat.

With 2 Mbps, downloading large e-mail attachments, viewing Web sites that use rich media, vigilance YouTube and — perhaps — viewing video on other streaming sites, using instant messaging, and other common tasks should work well, more or less.

Can have being too long

Downloading digital movies might be tedious and require too abundant bandwidth. A standard-definition two-hour film can top 1 gigabyte, which would take one hour of transferring time by not at all other hard users. On a red eye, it ability work.

Airlines might distribute movies over the local network, yet. With a server on the plane, netting speeds could be from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps. With or without videos, having e-mail access alone might be enough of an incentive to employment the system.

Craig Furuta, a frequent flyer and government consultant, has used Gogo on American flights. He said via e-mail, “I found it to be excellent accurate so the e-mail doesn’t amass up.”

“E-mail is killer app”

Veteran travel writer Joe Brancatelli, who has written critically of the early hype over in-flight Internet, said he expects that if and when service is widely available, “e-mail is the killer app. The same mentality that drives the BlackBerry is what will drive Internet usage on planes. Staying in come in contact with trumps all for business travelers.” Brancatelli hasn’confidentially yet used the Gogo gain.

I tested Gogo on a press flight Nov. 22 in which Virgin America and Aircell assembled YouTube celebrities, print and online journalists, bloggers, and others on a brief flight that circled around San Francisco International Airport.

It was the master of circumstances for the companies pumping the new offering because the 130-odd people on board were every one of trying to use the service at the same time — but it held up supremely well.

My burning question was simply: can I Twitter? Yes. Also instant communication, blog, e-mail, and download files; those around me were streaming video resembling mad.

A bandwidth test I ran for the time of this period of heavy use still showed other than 700 Kbps downstream and 200 Kbps upstream, a remarkable number during heavy use.

If they construct it,

be pleased they come?

Aircell isn’privately the first firm to offer in-flight Internet love. Boeing launched in-flight Wi-Fi with its Connexion service in 2004, but the high cost of adding satellite receivers and other gear to planes didn’t mesh not amiss through the position of the airline industry. (Aircell says its installation costs and equipment weight and haul are in a less degree than a fifth of Connexion’session.)

In 2006, Boeing canceled the service. At that point, it had wound up in just several twelve overwater, long-haul planes, by fees ranging from $10 toward one hour to $27 for an entire flight.

Aircell’s business uses air-to-ground spectrum formerly reserved for Verizon AirFone and previous aloft phone services that were auctioned against by the FCC in 2006.

License purchased

Aircell purchased a license of three-quarters of the available spectrum. JetBlue’s LiveTV in-flight festival division bought the other quarter. That’session wherefore Aircell can offer a part like broadband, while JetBlue has a somewhat more restricted proposition.

The service works no other than over the found in the U.S., with a network of small room towers beaming ascending. Aircell expects to receive regulatory approval eventually for the same service in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Alaska and Southwest, meanwhile, have said they’ll test a satellite-based offering from a company called Row 44. Satellite employment is critical notwithstanding Alaska Airlines with so many routes taking it over the Pacific to Alaska or Mexico. An Alaska spokesperson said the airline might start adding Internet approach in early 2009; Southwest didn’t respond to a request with regard to comment.

Gogo now costs $9.95 for flights of three hours or shorter, and $12.95 on account of longer flights.

There’s no limit on bandwidth consumed. Aircell executives said recently they anticipate to proffer time-of-day pricing — such as discounted rates for red-eye flights — and other pricing options while the service rolls out to more airlines and aircraft.

While the price may own contributed to Connexion’s failure to take hold, the current charges mirror overnight hotel Internet rates and may subsist more palatable.

Aircell hasn’t yet discussed a monthly fixed rate or corporate discounts.

“I would pay for the service for flights longer than three hours … but not for a two-hour flight,” Furuta related.

Shawn King, the throng of “Your Mac Life,” an Internet radio show, used American’s service in October, and wrote by way of e-mail, “If your business requires Net admission or something important is happening while you are in the air, the $12.95 require to be paid is peanuts.”

King, who freely admits that he communicates prolifically, noted via Twitter that Internet access was “well worth the money to stave off in-flight boredom.”

Your company, everywhere

Being reachable all the time is a utopia for some, a nightmare for others. The lack of voice and video-chat services — airlines are blocking VoIP use — should preserve some bearing of privacy.

And business travelers before that time know that when they’ve been uncovered of touch on a cross-country skip, hours of e-mail typically await them on touching down.

In-flight Internet access might just helper more travelers regain their equilibrium, and, towards others, fraud away those crowded, tedious hours.

Glenn Fleishman writes the Practical Mac column in Personal Technology.

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