United plans for domestic in-flight connectivity

In the New York Times article United Airlines Approved for In-Flight Internet Service, Jeremy Peters reports that United Airlines will be the first domestic airline to receive approval from regulators to install wireless Internet networks on its planes. United plans to take the service live sometime in mid- to late 2006.

United’s senior vice president for marketing, said the airline had not yet determined what the cost would be. "We’re certainly aware of what the mental price points are for our customers," he said.

Apparently, the Wi-Fi system will utilize the existing onboard phone network, which is operated in a partnership with Verizon. Also transmission will be sent to towers on the ground, and not to satellite. This architecture differs from other inflight Wi-Fi technologies, so we’ll have to do some digging to determine what kind of transmission speeds users will experience. Also, this appears to be for a single Boeing 757, not a full fleet or partial fleet commitment yet on the part of UAL.