Thursday August 21, 2008

for those that can't last untethered

So American Airlines announced Internet for those that can't work offline while flying. Well, okay, they announce some form of expensive cripplenet:

Aircell’s Gogo will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Aircell will charge $12.95 on flights more than three hours, which include American’s Boeing 767-200 flights. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services are not available.

"full Internet" 'cept for those services we might wish to charge extra for later. Not sure what "Cell phone" has to do with that but being able to use VOIP is well withing the definition of "full Internet". Sadly I doubt most will realize the duplicity in AA's statement.

I wonder how many people really need to be connected for the flight time? I guess if it kept me from buying expensive drinks it might be worth the $12.95 an hour. Barely. I suspect it will be slow enough it might actually increase my tab. ( Aug 21 2008, 03:05:03 PM PDT ) Permalink