It's official! In-Flight WiFi provider (and all around awesome people) Gogo In-Flight have announced their plans to go both international with coverage, and to expand offerings to include streaming content. This shouldn't be news to you at all, especially since we snuck around Gogo's Chicago HQ almost two months ago and put our fingers on the new system ourselves and then told you all about it.
Here's the gist of it: ]]>
Gone are the days of crossword puzzles, and $5.99 mystery/thriller novels bought in a rush from the airport bookstore. At least these things are over in paper form, as travelers bring more and more new gadgets onboard airplanes and In-Flight WiFi opens up a whole new level of personal entertainment. The current industry leader in that realm is Gogo, whom you may know from giving them your credit card information to access WiFi onboard AirTran, American, Virgin America, Delta, Alaska Airlines, United, US Airways, Frontier, and two planes on Air Canada.
Last week in Chicago, we swung by Gogo's headquarters near O'Hare Airport to talk everything from Foursquare to Skymall, and to fiddle with their next innovation: in-flight streaming content. ]]>
Have you sent your first "I'm typing this from an airplane" tweet yet? The ability to do something that seemingly simple is really the result of millions and millions of dollars, countless hours of technical work, innummerable contracts and even tech spies flying the skies. This is the realm of Gogo In-Flight, a Chicago-based company that travelers interact with by paying for their service on WiFi-equipped flights on AirTran, American, Virgin America, Delta, Alaska Airlines, United, US Airways, Frontier, and two planes on Air Canada.
During a recent visit to Chicago, we had the opportunity to interact with Gogo on a whole new level; we peeked around their HQ near O'Hare Airport, and—gasp—actually saw the doohickey that sits inside an airplane and allows you to update your Facebook profile from 35,000-feet. Stay tuned as we bring you the full story (and way more photos) on Monday, but for now—please say hi to one of Gogo's most remote antennas, in the Alaskan wilderness. ]]>
Chalk another one up for American Airlines. The carrier is moving quickly in the new in-flight entertainment arena, announcing later yesterday that they're beginning to experiment with a new way from Aircell to stream media from the internet directly to your WiFI-enabled device, in flight.
American really isn't slouching on in-flight tech. They've had an iPhone app—which now tells if your flight is equipped with the WiFI they're installing—and American is totally down with mobile boarding passes, too. So hey, if streaming content is available then why not trial it, right? Right.]]>
It’s no secret that we love us some access to in-flight WiFi, and now it looks like the internet in the sky party is getting even better. After storming into the skies within the last few years, it looks like Aircell and their Gogo service is about to up the ante.
Thanks to some newfangled cellular technology, your in-flight download speeds are about to get a little bit faster, as Aircell is planning to boost its capacity within the next two years. They're hoping that the faster speeds should be available during the first half of 2012, but the only catch is that airlines will need to choose to upgrade their equipment onboard their planes. Let’s just hope that some of those checked baggage fees can be spent towards ridiculous internet speeds, as we just need video streaming when at 35,000 feet. ]]>
The crusade for in-flight wifi claims another victory as major private jets provider NetJets announces that they will equip 250 planes in their fleet with high-speed internet from Aircell.
Although this doesn't affect a vast majority of travelers, it does however mean that businessmen, politicians and Kanye West—when he calls up another "BABYMAMAJET"—will be able to tweet, blog, and yea do other online business stuff while at 30,000 feet. We can hear Kanye loading up his blog and hitting the caps lock key already. ]]>
Are you on Foursquare yet? The location-based social network that lets you "check in" to places you go from your phone for points and "badges" is growing like wildfire, and we're huge proponents of it. Actually, you can be our friend on Foursquare here to see tips we've left at our favorite places around the globe.
While you're hopping around and checking in, you can now earn what we think may just be the coolest Foursquare badge yet. It was announced today that Gogo, the biggest provider of in-flight internet (used on airlines like Delta, American, AirTran and Virgin America) has teamed up with Foursquare to create the "Mile High Badge." ]]>