Of course this is aimed at getting more people to pay for the service, which costs $12.95 per flight. But hey, you can’t turn down free Internet. Your boss will love it.

United Airlines Introduces Try-Before-You-Buy Wi-Fi Promotion
Gogo ® Inflight Internet now available on all p.s. flights

CHICAGO, Nov. 23, 2009 – Just in time for the busy Thanksgiving holidays, United Airlines customers on transcontinental p.s. (SM) flights can enjoy a complimentary
onboard Internet session with the new Try-Before-You-Buy promotion, offered in conjunction with airborne communications provider Aircell.

Through Dec. 31, first-time users of Aircell’s Gogo ® Inflight Internet service will be offered one free session upon creating a new account.

Gogo enables customers with Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs to surf the Web, check e-mail, send and receive instant messages, and access a corporate VPN.

The service is available on all of United’s p.s. flights between New York Kennedy and the airline’s Los Angeles and San Francisco hubs.

“Gogo Inflight Internet service on our p.s. flights provides our customers with an even more productive and enjoyable travel experience,” says Allen Will, managing director of strategic aircraft programs. “With Gogo Inflight Internet and an AC power port at every seat, p.s. customers will get more accomplished in the air this holiday season, leaving time for more holiday cheer on the ground.”

For more information on United’s inflight Internet service, visit united.com/Wi-Fi.

About United
United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAUA) operates approximately 3,300* flights a day on United and United Express to more than 200 U.S. domestic and international destinations from its hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C. With key global air rights in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and Latin America, United is one of the largest international carriers based in the United States. United also is a founding member of Star Alliance, which provides connections for our customers to 1,071 destinations in 171 countries worldwide. United’s 47,000 employees reside in every U.S. state and in many countries around the world. News releases and other information about United can be found at the company’s Web site at united.com.

*Based on United’s forward-looking flight schedule for October 2009 to October 2010.

Yup, another airline is poised to offer in-flight Wi-Fi. United Airlines has said that it will start use of Aircell’s Gogo service beginning with flights between New York and California. It’s $12.95 for laptop access for the duration of the flight.

A grand total of 13 planes (Boeing 757s) will be equipped with Wi-Fi. If I had any business in California, I would just play World of Warcraft for the duration of the flight.

Oh, and one thing I was wonder: what kind of security are we looking at here? Can some punk kid just fire up Ettercap, and steal everyone’s username/password to every single site they visit? You can see the headline now: HACKING AT 30,000 FEET!

Picture added for humorous effect.

Congrats to US Airways for striking up a deal with Aircell to deploy Gogo on their fleet of 50 A321 aeroplanes.

Condolences to the hard working folks who will have to wait until 2010 to use the in-flight Wi-Fi service.

Whether we realize it or not, there’s a race going on in the skies above us. With the advent of wireless Internet access creeping into what once our sanctuary of solitude at 37,000 feet has now become a domain for self-righteous dingbats to livestream their flights for all to see.

Leading the way is Virgin America who announced today that they are the first airline in all the land to offer Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service on every single flight. To mark the occasion an air-to-ground Skype video call will take place with thee Oprah Winfrey herself and will air on Thursday the 21st. VoIP calls aren’t allowed on any Virgin America flight, but, you know, you can’t say no to Oprah or she’ll eat you.

Pricing for Gogo on Virgin America flights start at $7.95 for handheld devices, $9.95 for flights less than three hours and $12.95 for anything over. If you’re on a red-eye then need only muster up $5.95, which is a steal for those on transcon flights.

Today in Baltimore, I think, AirTran announced that it would become the first fleet in the US to have Wi-Fi on every flight. Equipped with Aircell’s Gogo service, AirTran will outfit all 136 Boeing 737 and 717s by mid-summer. No word on pricing, but we expect them to fall in line with what Virgin America and American Air charge. That is all.

A few weeks back I hopped onto my first Virgin America flight with Aircell’s Gogo service on-board. It wasn’t the first time I’ve reviewed Gogo and if you recall I was on the first commercial Gogo flight with American Air. The plan was to interview James Weatherson, Virgin America’s inflight entertainment engineer, while I was up in the air, but there was a scheduling mix up and the interview never went down. So we opted to do it the old fashioned way. Below is my brief conversation with James about Red and where it’s headed.

CrunchGear: Other than some content changes, I haven’t seen a whole lot of new stuff for Red. What can we expect to see this year from VX?

James Weatherson: Actually, we’re now right in the middle of a Red software upgrade that will allow us to create an even more robust entertainment content platform at every seat. Our platform is actually pretty new and ambitious for a system at 37,000 feet in-flight, so the upgrades that will go live this Summer are mainly focused on improving functionality, reliability and the speed of the Linux-based system. We’re aiming to increase the speed of the system and usability, as well as allow us to further build out the content platform. So we’re planning more video games, movies and other content in the latter half of 2009 thanks to these upgrades. And we’re also making some changes that came as suggestions from guests who emailed us in-flight via the Red feedback in-box, like being able to listen to your music play-list and play video games at the same time and giving business travelers receipts for their food – so when they swipe their credit card at their seat, they’re emailed a receipt. You’ll be able to do that as of June. The former is a relief for me, as the sound effects on DOOM for some reason get super annoying when you reach hour three of a transcon flight.

CG: Are the shopping and book services going live this year?

JW: Yep, once we get these software upgrades in place we plan to go live with the Shop platform in late 2009, with the Read section to follow. Stay tuned.

CG: I heard a nasty rumor that VX was thinking of getting rid of the touch-screens because the majority of passengers don’t know how to use a touch-screen. Any truth to that?

JW: No, we don’t plan to go retro on you on Red. Most of our guests are pretty tech-savvy and a lot of them have an iphone or other touchscreen PDA on them when they fly, so they work the system just fine. We do actually mention the importance of a “soft touch” in both our in-flight guide (attached) about the Red system and our flight teams also mention it when they explain how the system works. It has not really been a problem, but the interface just works better with light tapping, as opposed to thumping – just like an itouch or iphone. However, we are disabling the touch-screen on the games only, as the remotes just work better – that change goes live with our Summer upgrades in June.

CG: Maybe VX should make a video for people to watch that shows them how to use the touch-screen. I know I can’t stand people who sit behind me and punch the screen. What do you think?

JW: I like the video idea! We’ve got a depiction of that in our in-flight guide (PDF), and the caricature is of our head of web marketing, Jen Larson, because it is her pet peeve. If we do a video, we got to think of an appropriate spokesperson who could demonstrate that almost anyone can use Red. Maybe a Miss USA contestant?

CG: Anything else we can look forward to that you can talk about?

JW: We’re focusing pretty aggressively on our fleet-wide WiFi roll-out. We’ll be the first and only airline to have it on every single flight by this Memorial Day (it is now on 24 of 28 planes). And we just became the first airline to offer absinthe in-flight. Although, on second thought: the image of guests twittering at 37,000 ft while drinking absinthe is somewhat disturbing.

Aircell and American Airlines have just announced that the domestic carrier will continue to deploy Gogo throughout 300 planes in the next two years. Starting this year, AA will outfit 150 MD-80 aircrafts followed by Boeing 737-800s. Gogo is currently available on non-stop AA flights originating from JFK to SFO, LAX and MIA. Flights longer than three hours cost $13 while flights shorter than that cost $10 and there’s a mobile device plan for $8. That is all.

Alaska Airlines has announced that they’ve started testing Row 44’s satellite-based Wi-Fi service on a handful of Boeing 737-700s. The first trial flight will take place between Seattle and San Jose (leaves Seattle at 2:20 PT today and returns on Flight 329 from San Jose back to Seattle) and the service will be free for 60 days. After today that aircraft will shift routes, which includes anything going up and down the West Coast and Alaska. No exact date has been attached to the trial (but I would assume it’s today or sometime this week) and pricing hasn’t been set, but I’d imagine it’s close to what VA or AA is charging for Aircell’s Gogo service.

SEATTLE — Alaska Airlines today will launch a customer trial of its new satellite-based wireless Internet service. Named Alaska Airlines Inflight Wi-Fi, the service can be used inflight on any Wi-Fi enabled device such as a laptop, smartphone or portable media player.
Onboard Alaska Airlines’ specially-equipped Boeing 737-700 passengers will now be able to engage in a range of activities including browsing the Web; accessing online music, games, podcasts and webcasts; sending and receiving e-mail; and connecting to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The service will be free at the start of the trial, which is scheduled to begin on an afternoon flight between Seattle and San Jose, Calif., and will run for about 60 days. After a successful trial period, the airline will determine the schedule for rolling out the commercial availability of its wireless Internet service to its entire fleet of aircraft.
“We’re thrilled to be able to offer our passengers a way to stay connected to what matters most to them while en route to their destinations,” said Steve Jarvis, Alaska’s vice president of marketing, sales and customer experience. “This is a service that everyone can use, whether it’s for business or entertainment. Our service gives passengers a choice in how they spend their time while traveling and enhances the inflight experience.”
Alaska Airlines and Row 44 have cooperated for more than two years to bring this service to market. “Alaska Airlines continues its long track record of deploying innovative technologies,” said John Guidon, CEO for Row 44. “We are proud to be associated with their team and thrilled that such a forward-thinking airline selected Row 44’s inflight satellite broadband service.”
The airline conducted extensive ground and inflight tests of the technology prior to the launch of the service trial to ensure the system does not interfere with aircraft navigation equipment. In addition, the aircraft equipment has received complete airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. The service is being offered on a trial basis and has not yet received final Federal Communications Commission approval.
As Henry Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research said in a recent article entitled “Online on High” on CNN.com, “I expect there to be two groups of airlines: those that have announced plans to have Internet access and those that will wonder why they have lost passengers.”

Internet for everyone
Alaska Airlines Inflight Wi-Fi works with a broad range of Wi-Fi-enabled devices and will allow business and leisure travelers the convenience of a high-speed network comparable to their office or home connection. The Inflight Wi-Fi splash page contains live news, music, shopping and links to practical services on Alaska’s award-winning Web site, alaskaair.com. Additionally, passengers can:

* Browse the Web
* Access online music, games, podcasts, webcasts, etc.
* Instant message friends, family and colleagues
* Send and receive e-mail
* Access corporate networks via VPN

Alaska has long pioneered technology to improve the customer experience. The airline was the first in North America to sell tickets online in 1995 and, four years later, was the first carrier worldwide to offer Internet check-in and boarding passes.

Pricing and availability
Final pricing for the service has not been determined. The airline plans to use customer feedback to design a flexible pricing structure that will be affordable and competitive with other services in the industry.

Virgin America, my favorite domestic airline, is launching service to and from Boston today with three daily routes from LA and two daily routes from San Francisco. This is important for those traveling between Boston and California because all flights to and from Boston are equipped with Aircell’s Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service.

In anticipation of the Boston launch, Virgin America asked Boston residents to nominate a non-profit agency in the area that was doing good and changing things for the better. And tonight in Boston, Sir Richard Branson will donate $25,000 on behalf of Virgin Unite (the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group).

Virgin America’s and Virgin Unite’s selected non-profits:
v Green for All is committed to building a green economy that will help lift people out of poverty. The group focuses on connecting underserved communities to the emerging green economy through job creation and training, including projects in New Bedford. http://www.greenforall.org/

v KIPP Academy Lynn is a free public middle school modeled on the nationally recognized, tested and proven Knowledge is Power Program, a network of not-for-profit charter schools that prepares underserved kids for college. Virgin America has been a KIPP partner since 2007. http://www.kipplynn.org/about.php

v StandUp For Kids, Boston is a national all volunteer non-profit that has been active for 19 years, and works in the Boston area to get kids off the streets and to make a difference in the lives of at-risk and homeless youth. http://www.standupforkids.org/local/massachusetts/Boston

The top voted “revolutionary” non-profit on www.revolutiontakesflight.com:
v The Friendship Circle of Sharon teams up teens with special needs children. Now in its 15th year, the non-profit is powered by hundreds of teens who volunteer their time to engage special needs children in a wide range of activities and to provide their parents with respite and support. http://www.sharonfriends.org/

The runner-up in the popular vote was Boston Medical Center’s pediatric at-risk unit, the SPARK Center, which offers comprehensive, state-of-the-art medical care for Boston’s most at-risk children. www.bmc.org/spark

The following aircrafts are Wi-Fi-enabled:

638
529
530
521
522
526
629
525
527

Also, here’s video from the Boston press conference…

Southwest Airlines announced today that it would be testing a satellite-based in-flight Wi-Fi system on one of its flights with the service to go live next Monday. Three other planes are to be equipped by next month, says SWA. But the service will remain in beta for several months.

Here’s the real kicker, folks. The service will be free while it’s being tested. When the service is out of beta, CEO John Guidon says it will cost less than $10/day. And Row 44, the satellite operator based in Westlake Village, CA, says that low price is possible.

Satellite-based service means it’ll work over water unlike Aircell’s service that is limited to over ground use. But without a hands-on test, we won’t know for sure how well this satellite-based service works compared to ground-to-air. Anyone flying on SWA today?

via USA Today

United has signed on with Aircell to bring the Internets to the skies making it harder for us to have some peace and quiet on those transcon flights. They now join Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta and Virgin America. In what appears to be the norm for these Wi-Fi equipped flights, you can expect to have service on flights from New York’s JFK to SFO and LAX. All 13 Boeing 757s in the United stable will be Internet ready in the second half of this year. United is offering the service to all cabins at a flat rate of $12.95.

Row44. That’s the name of the company that plans to bring satellite-delivered Internet access to your laptop while you’re flying from finished New York to phony Los Angeles; everywhere in between, too.

In-flight Internet access isn’t entirely new. Aircell lets you cruise Web sites on Virgin America and American Airlines, but that uses cellular towers so who cares. Only two airlines, Southwest and Alaska, will offer the service initially on select flights, but it’ll be for free. Think of it like as a beta.

Some have pointed out that Row44’s service could be used for pure evil. That is, some guy could use it to talk on Skype the whole flight. May I suggest to the people who find that scenario so disagreeable—Heaven forbid you talk to your loved ones, or to business partners while in the sky—that you get a cheap pair of earbuds? Problem solved.

Nothing about any sort of Internet filtering.

Photo: Flickr

It’s been an exciting year filled with a cornucopia of gadgets having passed through the CrunchGear offices. Most I’ve loathed and a few I’ve adored, but only a handful of things end up finding their way into my gear bag. Here’s my brief list in no particular order.

I’ve had the pleasure of groping every single mobile phone (smart phones in particular) to come out this year and the only one that I can’t put down is the BlackBerry Bold. Sure, I’ve had the G1 and the iPhone 3G, which are great devices but the Bold is the one that always makes its way into my pants. It’s the fastest and sexiest device to come from up North in quite some time. (What they were thinking with the Storm, I’ll never know.)

Next year will be interesting, to say the least, with Android shifting into high gear and Apple doing whatever it is they do to give us wet dreams. I hope RIM steps it up because it’s a whole new ballgame now.

Having a good friend who happens to be a sound engineer does one of two things: gets you into sold out concerts for free and turns you into an audiophile. The latter is more applicable here and that’s why I have to dip my hat to Ultimate Ears.

Ultimate Ears never ceases to amaze me with their line of in-ear monitors. I have nothing but praise for every single pair I’ve tried. Even their more affordable sets are better than most. You won’t find me jamming my eardrums with anything other than the Triple.fi 10s (review coming soon) for the near future. Unless, of course, UE pushes out their 11s into a non-custom model.

THX and Razer’s collaboration on the Mako 2.1 speaker set continues to blow me away.

I’m obsessed with photographing everything around me, so these days I carry around a one-two combo from Pentax. They may not have all the bells and whistles like Nikon and Canon, but I’ve always rooted for the underdog and Pentax feels homier compared to the others. No need to go into minute details over pixels and other hardcore photog details because I’m not a pro and don’t aspire to be.

I just need my camera to be simple to use and the K200D does everything I need it to do. With a little more time my needs and wants will expand and I hope Pentax can fill that upcoming void. For now, the K200D is my workhorse and the 50mm f/1.4 and 28mm manual focus lenses are sufficient enough.

I can’t always travel with my full rig and most point and shoots confuse me with all the crap they come with, but the W60 is fairly easy to use and delivers adequate images in most settings. It’s waterproof, so that’s the biggest draw for me and does well at ISO 800. I relied on the W60 for both videos and images during my trip to El Salvador.

The K2000 is a great starter SLR for those looking to step up from your standard p&s. I just love that little “Help” button.

I’m also going to throw down on Lexar’s Shoot-N-Sync Eye-Fi-enabled Wi-Fi SD card as well. It’s limited for what we need to use it for (live blogging), but it’s a neat gadget that dramatically cuts down the time it takes for me to upload images.

When I do manhandle my iPhone 3G it dies by midday and that makes me cry. A lot. There are a lot of iPhone/iPhone 3G backup battery solutions at the moment, but I’ve used the Mophie Juice Pack the most and the addition of a USB port rather than Apple’s proprietary port makes it more useful and easier to replenish.

What else…

Having recently resurrected my Nintendo DS from the depths of my desk drawer, I’ve been enamored with two titles: Cake Mania 2 and Pipe Mania (for the PSP too). Yes, CM2. It’s good and I’m not afraid to admit it!

I will finally concede and pick the PlayStation 3 for its ability to support all Blu-ray standards (current and upcoming) and play some kickass games like Little Big Planet. It’s a heck of a lot more fun than I imagined.

While we’re on the subject of A/V, let’s toss in the Western Digital WD TV HD media player. It rocks, hands down.

What? I carry a lot of stuff with me.

And I throw it all into my LowePro Fastpack 250 backpack, which has more than enough room for all the aforementioned doodads and then some. Dakine’s EQ Bag also accompanies my LowePro bag while traveling.

Almost finished, I promise.

I love G-Shock watches! All of them. Quiksilver’s Harvard tide watch is a great piece too. Just a huge chunk of glass to show me everything I need to know about my local spot or places I’ll be traveling to.

Oh, and Aircell’s in-flight Wi-Fi service Gogo has made traveling across the country a thousand times better. Wi-Fi on a plane? Need I say more? Of course! Virgin America tops my list of favorite airlines and the addition of Gogo makes it the best airline in all the land.

Well, I think that’s about it.

Delta has selected AirCell to provide the signal, but other companies, like Row44, are offering WiFi solutions to airlines, too. American Airlines, JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic all have plans in the works to put WiFi onto airplanes, so Delta’s announcement comes as no real surprise.

Our buds over at Jaunted just gave us the heads up that Virgin America will begin rolling out Aircell’s Gogo service, which we reviewed back in August, on November 22. The “beta” flight will take off from SFO, VA’s HQ, to JFK. Virgin plans to roll out the in-flight broadband service on one plane per week with a full rollout scheduled by March 2009. Oh, and they won’t be filtering the service either. The RED system will eventually be wired in as well, but we won’t see that happen until later on in 2009.

Based on the feedback of our customers and employees, American Airlines is working with Aircell(R) to implement technology to filter pornographic content over the Gogo(R) inflight Internet service.

I guess you’ll have to “pack in” your own stuff and not rely on the bounty of the internet. You filthy animal.

While Delta initially said it had no plans to filter Web sites from its in-flight broadband offerings, complaints have caused the airline to change its mind. When the service launches later this, Delta will block inappropriate Web sites, thus saving humanity from itself.

A Delta spokesperson says the filtering will be limited in scope, he didn’t elaborate as to what exactly constitutes “inappropriate.” Porn, fine; if you can’t stay away from Bang Bus for a few hours while in the air perhaps you should seek help. But what about other things? Does Delta consider something like What.cd to be inappropriate, even if I’m just visiting the forums? What about sites with bad words in them, like, say, ours?

Who will guard the guardians, to borrow a tired phrase.

Canadian travelers will soon be able to emulate their favorite CrunchGear blogger, Peter Ha, as they glom on to Aircell’s Gogo wireless internet service aboard their next international Air Canada flight. You’ll recall that Sweet Pete recently blogged from 37,000 feet using Gogo service aboard American Airlines. What fun we all had!

You’ll have to wait until at least spring of 2009, as that’s when Air Canada hopes to start rolling out the service on its fleet of Airbus A319 airplanes that fly between Canada and the United States.