Travelers can now enjoy Internet access as they fly the skies
According to official lore at Illinois-based Aircell， the company's founder first sketched his own idea for an airplane telephone system on a napkin while sitting in a Texas barbecue restaurant in 1991.
In August， Aircell chief executive Jack Blumenstein sat in a terminal at John F.Kennedy （JFK） International Airport， monitoring several American Airlines flights equipped not with in-flight telephones， but broadband Internet access. The company built the Wi-Fi systems for American， which recently launched Internet service onboard the carrier's 15 Boeing 767-200 aircraft.
Paving the way
The departure of the San Francisco， Los Angeles and Miami-bound flights form New York marked a key milestone for Aircell， which opened its local facilities less than two years ago to build the technology for Wi-Fi on commercial planes and won an exclusive license form the Federal Communications Commission （FCC） in 2006.
"This is a very transformative step and in many ways mind-boggling，" Blumenstein said in a phone interview from JFK， where he was preparing to board one of the afternoon flights.
While the skies are slowly opening to Internet connectivity， cell phone usage is still banned by FCC. Airline executive also say that U.S. customers， unlike many of their European counterparts， want to keep airplanes a cell phone-free zone. Aircell's Wi-Fi service blocks the use of Voice over Internet Protocol applications.
Market research does indicate demand for web access， especially on longer flights. A January 2008 report by Forrester Research showed that 41 percent of passengers were interested in using the Internet during flights between two and four hours， with that percentage rising to 55 percent when the flight goes over four hours.
Word
Lore （n） traditional knowledge and stories about a subject
Broadband （adj） describing a system that enables many messages or large amounts of information to be sent at the same time and very quickly between computers or other electronic devices.
Voice over Internet Protocol （n phr） technology that sends voice information over Internet connections in digital form
According to official lore at Illinois-based Aircell， the company's founder first sketched his own idea for an airplane telephone system on a napkin while sitting in a Texas barbecue restaurant in 1991.
In August， Aircell chief executive Jack Blumenstein sat in a terminal at John F.Kennedy （JFK） International Airport， monitoring several American Airlines flights equipped not with in-flight telephones， but broadband Internet access. The company built the Wi-Fi systems for American， which recently launched Internet service onboard the carrier's 15 Boeing 767-200 aircraft.
Paving the way
The departure of the San Francisco， Los Angeles and Miami-bound flights form New York marked a key milestone for Aircell， which opened its local facilities less than two years ago to build the technology for Wi-Fi on commercial planes and won an exclusive license form the Federal Communications Commission （FCC） in 2006.
"This is a very transformative step and in many ways mind-boggling，" Blumenstein said in a phone interview from JFK， where he was preparing to board one of the afternoon flights.
While the skies are slowly opening to Internet connectivity， cell phone usage is still banned by FCC. Airline executive also say that U.S. customers， unlike many of their European counterparts， want to keep airplanes a cell phone-free zone. Aircell's Wi-Fi service blocks the use of Voice over Internet Protocol applications.
Market research does indicate demand for web access， especially on longer flights. A January 2008 report by Forrester Research showed that 41 percent of passengers were interested in using the Internet during flights between two and four hours， with that percentage rising to 55 percent when the flight goes over four hours.
Word
Lore （n） traditional knowledge and stories about a subject
Broadband （adj） describing a system that enables many messages or large amounts of information to be sent at the same time and very quickly between computers or other electronic devices.
Voice over Internet Protocol （n phr） technology that sends voice information over Internet connections in digital form