I had the opportunity to test out Southwest Airlines‘ (relatively) new Wifi system on my way to Los Angeles this past weekend. I’d been hearing them talk about it for a while now and almost couldn’t contain myself to the point of 10,000 feet– at which point the system was turned on and we were “allowed to use our portable electronic devices.” I’d received an email from them a day or so before my flight, letting me know that the plane I was to be flying on, was equipped with their system. I’d been waiting since last year to try it out and for the introductory offer of $5.00 for the approximate three hour flight, I was ready.
While connecting to the Wifi router was pretty easy, getting the system to validate my credit card was not. It took between five and ten minutes and never confirmed that I was actually connected. By accident and ‘persnickity insistence’ (Seinfeld-like persistence, if you will), I found myself connected to gmail after closing and opening Safari multiple times. Incidentally, attempting with Chrome and Firefox did not speed up the process, though I thought for a brief shining moment it would.
Like any good tech-lawyer-wannabe, I attempt to seek out cool stuff, then justifying its existence and cost by thereafter trying
to do some work. There’s a possibility that ‘but for’ the existence of these cool toys, I might not get anything done at all. Nonetheless, after connecting, I was able to surf, download, check email, draft and electronically file a pleading in Travis County (using Prodoc’s e-filing portal), and Video Conference with Co-Council member Ron Chichester, using the gmail widget previously downloaded. The college girls sitting next to me no doubt thought I was out of my mind, talking what must have seemed like nonsense via Video Conference at 37,000 feet (note to self: sometimes it’s ok to have conversations just to prove you can have the conversation). Speed tests showed a download speed of a little over 3 Mbps but upload speeds were somewhere between dismal and dilatory (The difference is like that between when I was tired in 11th grade on the soccer field and when I wake up now every morning – all relative but equally inexcusable in my own mind). However, when push came to shove, I was blown away by the fact that I was able to video conference on the plane…just unbelievable.
Southwest Airlines had tested Wifi in 2009, announcing at the end of last October that they had Wifi on 32 planes and estimate they will outfit their whole fleet by approximately 2013.
Incidentally, the url to connect from the enabled-plane (if it’s not automatic, as mine wasn’t after the first attempt) is https://getconnected.southwestwi-fi.com/. This is not printed anywhere in the materials on the plane and the crew did not know either the address or much about the system. That’s ok, as it’s still in its infancy.
Southwest joins Air Tran (all flights), and partial providers American, JetBlue, United, US Airways, Virgin and others. Most use Gogo and cost anywhere between $4.95 to $49.00, depending on the device used and how proud they are.
