The Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg hauled several laptops and mobile gadgets onto a jet kitted out with Aircell’s GoGo in-flight Wi-Fi service. Speeds weren’t miraculous — 600Kbps down, 400Kbps up — and that bandwidth will be shared among all users, but hey, something is better than nothing.
American Airlines flights from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami will be the first to go GoGo; Virgin America will see the service installed on the whole fleet later this year.
Prices are $13 for flights over three hours or $10 for shorter flights.
Things you won’t be able to do on GoGo: VoIP (it’s blocked by GoGo); streaming video (it’s too slow); make cellular calls with your phone (it’s Wi-Fi, not cellular, even though the connection from the plane to the ground is more-or-less a cellular connection).
I’m sorry, I couldn’t get past “If you’re the kind of person who takes a LAP-TOP onto an AIR-PLANE…”