New Wi-Fi On Virgin America

Over the years there have been some big improvements in airline travel. It used to be that when you went on a plane you had to turn off your cellphones and settle for reading a book during your flight, making conversation with fellow passengers or watching an in-flight movie to pass the time. Today, airlines are trying to cater to passenger’s needs as much as possible, including offering improved Wi-Fi service. About 40% of airlines in the U.S. offer free Wi-Fi on its airplanes. This allows passengers to do simple things like check their emails or visit their favorite social media websites. Until recently, Wi-Fi service was too slow to do much more. However, Virgin America is trying to change all that by offering passengers a faster Wi-Fi service.

ViaSat Partnership

Virgin America recently announced a partnership with ViaSat. What this means is that 10 of the company’s A320 airplanes will have Ka-band satellite on onboard. This is a big deal because passengers will get to utilize 140 gigabytes of internet per second. For comparison, this is about 8-10 times faster than Wi-Fi on other planes. Traditionally airplanes that utilize Wi-Fi use 3G ground stations. The problem with this is that bandwidth can be very limited and slow. Getting a connection can be difficult and frustrating and times. Virgin America hopes to change all that and maybe build a new customer base with their Ka-band satellite.

Movies and YouTube

This service is so fast that passengers will be able to watch movies or videos online without it freezing up or having connection errors. They may also be able to Skype with their friends and family while in the air. Even when the plane is over an ocean and at a slower speed, passengers will not have to worry about getting disconnected. At its slowest speed it’s still expected to be a lot faster than other Wi-Fi connections that are currently being used on other airplanes.

The first planes that will offer this service are expected to offer flights throughout the continental United States sometime in the month of September. There will even be a plane that has the Ka-band satellite that will fly to Hawaii in the beginning of next year. For now, the service will be free as all the kinks are being worked out. However, in the future passengers may have to pay for it.

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