Saturday, January 26, 2008

Wifi @ 30K

On a recent trip accross the country I finally encountered a plane that had Wifi access for the trip. It was on a JetBlue flight and only worked once you were up to altitude. After waiting for so many years for internet connectivity in the air I was horrified to find they only supported Yahoo IM/Mail and Blackberry IM/Mail. In my Google/IMAP/Web world that means the service is USELESS. Fortuntely the DirectTV and XM offerings work well for me. The Bose quiet comfort 3 headphones my wife gave me for Christmas really help keep the noise and distraction down.

I worked the solid 6 hours on the flight, flipping in a new battery in the MacBook Pro half way while listening to my favorite XM station (16). There wasn't an airline power plug to be found on this new Wifi/XM/DirectTV plane. I could forgo all the rest if I had some juice. What are they thinking?

While JetBlue rarely runs on time in my experience and any unusual weather etc could delay you for days, the flights are comfortable once they get started.

Someday perhaps they'll figure it all out. Meanwhile i'm happy to be home.

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