photo credit: brixton

The number of optional extras that airlines can bolt on to your flight has been increased today. American Airlines (in the US) has unveiled their new inflight broadband service. Yes, they’ve been talking about it for a while now, but today it is a reality. The service is offered by AirCell, under the brand GoGo and has been rolled out as a 6 month pilot on American Airline’s 767-200 aircrafts connecting New York with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. The service costs around $13 for a flight which is around what you’d expect to pay for an hour’s Internet use in an airport or hotel here in the UK!

I personally can’t wait for this to be available more widely. I haven’t read about how AirCell deliver their service but if they use a satellite connection to supply the service, then offering it on transatlantic might be a possibility. It’s one way to make a long trip more bearable. Interestingly, VOIP services will be blocked over the connection, but I’m sure people will find a way around that

Addition: Just read that AirCell may have capacity problems providing this over a large number of planes, but an alternative by HarrisCorp is emerging. Read more here

What do you think is a best way to disappoint a customer? I’m sure you can come up with a big list, but right there at the top is promising something and not delivering. I arrived at the airport this morning nice and early because I knew they had free Wifi here, fired up my laptop … and no Wifi. It wasn’t all bad though, because when I tried 30 mins later the network was there, so it could well have been undergoing maintenance, but it did set me thinking all about promises and expectations. In the meantime, FlyBe announced that the earlier Gatwick flight had been delayed because of “technical issues” and that the flight to Birmingham and the flight I was on were delayed because of an “aircraft change”. Now don’t get me wrong, I do expect operational problems to creep in from time to time, but delaying three flights (out of the three on the board with that airline) is shocking!

Anyway, way to my Wifi incident. The reason I was upset was because something was promised to me (by way of a hanging advert and prior experience) and was not delivered. If there had been no prior expectation, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. It’s like like Wifi is so ubiquitous that you expect to find it everywhere (yet); so spending an hour waiting in a location without Wifi wouldn’t have been a problem for me. However, the expectation that something was supposed to be there and wasn’t was a totally different ball game.

I expect some industries are also harder to deal with than others. Airlines and trains in particular have a reputation for missing their schedules, but you can imagine that with all those moving parts, problem are bound to happen. I don’t envy companies who provide satellite internet services for example, as there are physical factors that can prevent proper delivery of their services. Wifi is another matter. Everyone with a wireless router at home will know that once it’s set up and running, it can run for months without needing any attention. That’s one reason why this morning was so “interesting”.

So, what really upsets you?

P.S. I’m a proud FONero .. see if you can spot me on the FON map. If you’re interested, remember, it’s not a franchise, anyone can sign up for free.

It would be great if you can walk around sharing your Internet connection, whether you’re out and about, or at home, skulking behind your roller shades. One thing is for sure. If you’re going to use this, make sure you have an unlimited data connection.

From a technology point of view, this news is just awesome. FON‘s premise is that broadband users around the country create a mini-hotspot around their house and provide access to some of their bandwidth. This gives them free access to other people’s FON-spot, and also allows FON to sell this coverage to non-FON users. BT is aiming to tap into this idea to provide a nationwide WiFi blanket, an idea I applaud. (I found out this is actually called a picocell network)

I think the perfect quote is comes from Nigel Wallbridge, chairman of Nomad Digital who says:

“Unoccupied rooms cost a lot more than free or discounted wi-fi access, yet very few hotels in Europe, unlike North America, are currently considering this as a way to get more guests through the door.”

Hoteliers have an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition and most aren’t using this. Instead they use WiFi as a profit center which just means that less people use it in the long run. In a competitive market, hoteliers should take advantage of extra frills which don’t really cost them much compared to other costs they have to face, and use this to make their offering more attractive to their customers. I personally think it’s only a matter of time before the situation changes in favour of their clients, so better capitalise on it while they can.

In the meantime, if you want to end extortionate WiFi pricing in hotels, sign the campaign here.

So, what does it consist of? Well, it’s:

• A widescreen iPod
• A touchscreen mobile phone
• A wifi-enabled Internet device

And those are just the headline points! It sports some great technology including motion, proximity and ambient light sensors, a multi-touch touchscreen, quad-band GSM, WiFi, EDGE and Bluetooth, visual voicemail and a whole bunch of other really really cool stuff. I NEED ONE OF THESE!!!

Interesting to note that Apple’s value increased by a whopping $6.1 billion as soon as the device was announced, while the value of Palm and RIMM dropped $2.2 billion. More here

• Put large furniture along the walls of your rooms
• Minimise mirrors
• Put your router at some central point of your house
• Keep antennas away from power cables

Read all about it, as well as other suggestions here >

FON is a Global Community of people who share WiFi. Share your WiFi broadband access at home/work and enjoy WiFi all over the world! FON: small cost, great benefit!

To become a Fonero, all you need to do is register with us on our website, have broadband connection, and download the FON Software onto your WiFi router. It’s that simple. Just share your connection and the rest of the Community shares back with you. Join FON and enjoy connecting from anywhere within the WiFi World. (from What is FON | FON)

Looks like a great idea, the only downside at this point in time is that you need a specific router to be able to join the game (Currently, FON works on Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL versions 1x to 4x). Will be a great one to keep an eye on and see how it grows. Would be interesting to pioneer something like this in the Isle of Man.