JetBlue to Deploy Advanced Inflight Wi-Fi by 2012 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369583,00.asp
JetBlue will bring advanced Wi-Fi to all 160 of its aircraft by late 2012, the company announced Thursday. The airline is partnering with California-based telecommunications company ViaStat to provide satellite broadband and TV service on its entire fleet. "Rather than invest in current technology, designed to transmit broadcast video and audio, we elected to partner with ViaStat to create broadband functionality worthy of today's interactive personal technology needs," JetBlue chief executive Dave Barger said in a statement. ViaSat will provide JetBlue with its Ka-band antenna components and SurfBeam 2 modems for use on the airline's EMBRAER E190 and Airbus A320 planes, as well as bandwidth services and satellites. Jetblue subsidiary LiveTV will handle the integration of ViaSat technology onto JetBlue planes and provide Wi-Fi service. The Federal Aviation Association must test the service before its implementation. ViaSat and LiveTV also intend to partner and bring this technology to other airlines. JetBlue first offered Wi-Fi service in December 2007 on its Airbus A320 with LiveTV, and Yahoo and Research in Motion as partners. According to a July report from Computerworld, one-third of domestic planes already offer Internet access. JetBlue competitors AirTran and Virgin Atlantic have it and Delta and Southwest plan to implement the feature on all of their planes by the time JetBlue begins installation. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
