Orange County was once a major hub for getting Wi-Fi onto airplanes. But that died when Irvine’s Connexion by Boeing shut down in 2006 after the market failed to materialize.
But a nearby startup is at it again. Row 44, a Westlake Village-based startup, is installing Wi-Fi onto airplanes from Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines. The first planes began flying passengers this week and have already been through John Wayne Airport during a test period, said Gregg Fialcowitz, (pictured on right) Row 44′s president and cofounder and a Fullerton native.
Row 44 has a 15-year exclusive contract to use satellite Internet technology from Hughes Network Systems. While the technology can support up to 30 megabits per second, the Hughes modem can only handle speeds up to 5 mbps, which would be shared by all passengers. Fialcowitz believes that even if everyone on the plane goes online, the Internet experience will be acceptable.
“If it doesn’t mimic what people get at home, they’ll be completely intolerant,” Fialcowitz said.
The service is free during the trial, which is expected to last for a few months. Service is available on two Southwest planes (numbers 906 and 907) with two more to go. There are also two from Alaska Airlines (numbers 644 and 623).
Passengers won’t know ahead of time whether their plane will have Wi-Fi. But customers should see the Wi-Fi placards on board. They will be able to use their Wi-Fi laptop, cell phone or other device. In addition, a special homepage will feature content from Yahoo!, a flight tracker and destination guides.
If the experiment goes well, Southwest will roll out Wi-Fi to all of its planes. Fialcowitz said it will be up to the airline to set the price. Southwest hasn’t said whether it would charge for Internet access but in a statement, the company said, “At southwest Airlines, fees don’t fly.”
Wi-Fi has been enjoying an in-the-air revival since the 2006 demise of Connexion and Verizon’s Airfone network. JetBlue’s LiveTV division purchased Airfone’s remains to expand its in-air Internet options and took over the service on Jan. 1. Aircell, which has its technology in some American Airlines planes, recently signed Delta Air Lines and Virgin America.
“Things have changed since the days of Connexion,” said Amy Cravens, an analyst who follows the industry for market researcher Multimedia Intelligence. Three things have happened, she said.
-
- Customers know more: Passengers are more familiar with Wi-Fi and are using it at home, work and in public areas, like Starbucks.
- Better tech: For airlines, the new technology is lighter and cheaper than Connexion’s.
- Lower costs: The service is more affordable to passengers. Previously, Wi-Fi in the air cost $15 to $20. Today, it’s around $6 to $9, she said.
“From an airline’s perspective, the new systems are a fraction of the cost of what Boeing was offering. It makes it more feasible and more affordable for airlines to deploy the service,” Cravens said.
Cravens plans to soon revise numbers from a study she authored last June about airlines’ investment investment in broadband technology. Back then, she projected in-flight broadband revenues would grow to $936 million by 2012, up from $6.6 million in 2008. However, due to the weak economy and rough year for the airline industry, Cravens plans to revise her numbers.
“I have a feeling that the planes deployed this year may end up being lower,” she said. “At this point though, it’s such a limited market. We only have three airlines that have signed up. I know a lot more airlines are looking into it.”
Fialcowitz is pretty confident that the time is right.
The technology is better, too. Connexion’s Wi-Fi equipment weighed 1,000 pounds, which limited the service to wide-body aircraft. Row 44′s hardware is 150 pounds. Connexion also had a tall exterior antenna, which hurt the plane’s aerodynamics. Row 44′s flat antenna looks like a little bump and causes 56 pounds of drag.
“One of the big differences between us and Connexion, they built everything from scratch and spent over $1 billion. We’re leveraging an existing infrastructure from Hughes,” Fialcowitz said.
The hardware includes an external antenna, which looks like a flat bump on top of the plane (see image of Southwest airplane). Inside the plane, there are four boxes. There are two wireless access points, an FAA-approved Cisco router and the antenna control unit, which tracks the satellite.
The 25-person company, which also has technology for in-flight phone calls and TV, got its name from a bad memory, when co-founder and CEO John Guiden had to sit in the very last row of one long miserable flight. It was cramped, the seat couldn’t recline and it was next to the bathroom.
“If we could do something for the poor guy in row 44, our company has accomplished something,” Fialcowitz said.
All images courtesy of Row 44.
Older stories about in-flight entertainment on Gadgetress:
