Hello everyone! You probably saw the title of this blog post and thought, “haven't I heard that before?” True, the road to onboard wi-fi has been a long one, but this week we took a major step that gets us closer to rolling out the system fleetwide. We ended the equipment "testing" phase and signed an equipment purchase contract with our wi-fi provider, Row 44. That means we now begin the process of getting equipment ordered and aircraft scheduling in place to begin our full fleet installation.
We’ll begin installing the equipment in the second quarter of 2010. We expect to install equipment on around 15 aircraft per month initially, with the goal of increasing that number to 25 aircraft a month as we ramp up the process. With this schedule, we estimate that our full fleet of more than 540 planes will be outfitted with wi-fi service by early 2012.
So, on to the next pressing issue… what will it cost to connect?. We don’t have an answer to that quite yet. We’re still testing a variety of price points on the four aircraft that currently have wi-fi. We’ll have a decision on price in the second quarter of 2010—rest assured that, just like our fares, it will be a great value. You can count on it!
We’re excited about this new inflight amenity and we promise it will be well worth the wait! We’ll have more updates along the way, but, in the meantime, keep booking those Southwest flights! Your chances of traveling on a wi-fi plane will increase soon! (And don’t worry, we won’t tell your boss that you've been surfing the Internet.) ;)
Comments
Wifi will be great... but what about no power ports? Using wifi takes up a lot of a laptop's power and w/o any way to charge inflight, I'll be reluctant to pay for the wifi access...
A Listers should receive for free.
Is there any way to determine which flights include those 7 planes?
I love flying Southwest. If it is only a dollar or two increase for everyone maybe that would be okay. I also wonder if the drink tickets would be a good option since I don't drink maybe I could use them for something.
Dear WillFly,
The WiFi project is going forward, and as of today, seven aircraft have been equipped. Hope that helps!
Did this ever really happen? How many planes is this available on now?
nice
Actually wifi was announced January 2008 with the first 18 months used for testing. I actually flew twice on the test planes and the service was excellent including vpn and voip. Now it's third quarter and I have yet to see an aircraft with a hump on its fuselage this year. In theory there should be over 60 aircraft at this point but I highly doubt there is more than a handful. Again they picked the wrong technology as it's very difficult/expensive to install relative to competition. But it will work great on their overseas flights! If you look through the Row 44 website you can tell this company is faultering when the only other airline to test the technology (Alaska) quickly dropping it in favor of GoGo. It's time for SW to admit its mistake and pick a new vendor that can rollout system wide in a few months instead of a few years.
nice thanks thanks for this
Great Wi-Fi Service, But Where Is It?
I tried Southwest's Wi-Fi last September 2009 on a short flight and as an technology professional, I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of service. Not only was the throughput high, the latency was incredibly low and the service never dropped out, even during turns. This is in contrast to Continental Airlines DirectTV service which drops out every time the plane makes a turn (but don't get me wrong, I still love Continental Airlines overall).
Southwest's Wi-Fi announcement was made in January 2010 with the promise that installation would begin "in the second quarter of 2010". It's now August, over half a year later, well into the third quarter of 2010, and even though I fly Southwest almost once a week, I have yet to sit on a plane that is equipped with Wi-Fi. I'm no statistician, but I'm willing to bet Wi-Fi isn't equipped on any Southwest plane (except for their first test planes). What happened?
I don't mind paying for my own Wi-Fi as I don't expect most people will use it initially. After all, it's not fair to have everyone pay for it when only a handful use it (not to mention, the people using it will be the most well-equipped people anyway).
I'll even throw some numbers out: I'd be willing to pay $6 per flight, and perhaps up to $12 for a longer flight. I did some math and figured out Southwest only needs to raise everyone's fares by just $1-$2 to cover the same costs, but I prefer charging "per user". Here's why:
If everyone had free Wi-Fi, people would use it just for the sake of using it, and the service would get clogged with senseless activity like games and videos. Wireless is an extremely limited resource -- there simply isn't enough wireless resource on a plane for everyone to watch videos and play games at the same time -- an unfortunate law of physics. If wireless were handed out freely, the overall quality of service would suffer almost instantly, and all Southwest customers would be stuck paying the bill for awful service. On the other hand, if Southwest charged only the passengers who wanted Wi-Fi, they could let the natural forces of supply and demand play itself out -- those who needed it would pay for it. And chances are, Southwest might make a nice profit -- and if they don't, it might only cost the rest of us about $0.50.
I am one of those passengers who absolutely craves Wi-Fi.
In an airport terminal, I am basically free to perform certain tasks -- I can go shopping, make phone calls, meet with others, and read the news. However, those options are severely limited on a plane. On a plane, it's either SkyMall, talk to the person next to me, or read a magazine.
- SkyMall has some nice products, but in these times, I won't buy anything without doing some research first. Plus, I don't get the instant gratification of finishing an order online and receiving a confirmation. Sure, I could take the SkyMall catalog with me and order at home later -- but what fun is that?
- Small talk with your neighbor? Call me a grouch, but I don't really enjoy having someone grill me on my career or cram their views down my throat while I'm planning out my day (or reflecting on my day).
- Magazines are old news. They have great editorial content, but I want today's news, not last week's and definitely not last month's.
These are just awful options, so here's what usually ends up happening: I stare at the seat in front of me and doze off. Sometimes I order a drink, sometimes I read a book, but I am almost never productive. Sure, flying beats driving, but flying still makes my list as one of the most unproductive tasks I perform. If I had to pay $6-$12 (or two drink coupons) to remain productive, I would gladly do it.
My main concern is how easy it will be to sign in. Will I need spend 2-3 minutes to enter my name and credit card information on every flight? 2-3 minutes is a long time for a flight where passengers are only allowed to use electronics for 15-20 minutes. If I'm paying $6 for this service, I think Row 44 should be investing some serious resources into saving me 2-3 minutes during a short flight. It would be nice if it simply asked for a login and password, then asked if I was willing to charge my card ending in XXXX (which it remembered), and I went on with life.
I think Wi-Fi on a flight will end up being addictive: once I have it, I'll always want it -- on every single flight, long or short. I can already imagine what it might be like to have Wi-Fi stripped away from me: I'd be back to staring at the seat in front of me, dozing off. I'm almost certain flying would be worse than prison if it weren't for the length of term.