HasWifi Shows You Which Flights Have Wifi | Hacker News Reader

HasWifi Shows You Which Flights Have Wifi

techcrunch.com

18 pointsfname16 comments

This is a neat service for sure and will be useful to many. I would however like to address the following quote from the TechCrunch article:

"In fact, I now assume that all flights will have Wifi, so when they don’t (eh, hem United Flight 0059) it’s like someone cut off your oxygen. And it’s such a rude awakening when you get off the plane and realize that there’s a thousand emergencies that went down while you were watching the inflight Adam Sandler movie and you have to scramble for the rest of the day fighting fires."

If you are working with that kind of pressure for a long time, thats really counter productive. It can be kind of addictive being that irreplacable but its bad business.

On the other hand, when I had a travel-heavy job I relished time on planes because it meant there were 18 hours a week when I was in the air and absolutely unreachable by anyone.

I'd land and end up with three dozen emails, but at least I could just lie back and sleep confident that everyone knows I'm out of contact and doesn't expect an immediate response.

By 'thousand emergencies' they mean tweets from Paris Hilton or new comments on HN.

Hey Guys, this is my little project that keep seems to slowly be turning into a startup of sorts. Looking for some feedback on the idea, execution and thoughts going forward with it.

Thanks!

Here was the previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1747797

Wow, what a neat thing you have on the go there. It's a pity I don't fly much any more (and most of that was intercontinental anyway), but I can really see how this is - for a while at least - going to be useful to people.

The reason why I added the 'for a while' bit is that I think that internet access is like seatbelts, airbags and power steering. First it's a luxury, then it's common and finally it is simply standard.

So over time there will be a lesser requirement for this but during the transition period you'll make out handily.

For an 'encore' you could try to find if there are other things that airline service can be discriminated by and add those, that might give your site more relevance in the long term.

Much good luck to you!

And congratulations on getting covered by TC, hopefully the rest of the Tech writing community will pick up on this news.

Completely agree with you. It's just a matter of time before every flight has it available. The problem now is that some people have become highly dependent on it and almost expect it to be available, or go out of their way to make sure they book a flight where they know it's available. My goal is to make that a little easier for them.

Hmm, doesn't seem to recognize codeshares... for example I am on a "United" flight in a few weeks that is operated by US Airways. As such, although most of United's fleet lacks wifi, US Airways has a decent amount of coverage. I don't know the US Airways flight number, however, since I booked it as a UA codeshare.

It could be nice to add luggage fees to this.

Note that one of Kayak's options is to filter by wifi availability.

Hipmunk should integrate with this (or buy them or write their own) as soon as possible

In the UK the trains had free wiki which was fab - made going to London productive. Found out last night that they are now charging for it - cue grinding of teeth and endless rage.

In many cases you can get free wifi when there isn't free wifi by tunneling your requests over DNS. Check out iodine for how. I use it to bypass paid wifi hotspots in airports and other similar paces.

It actually varies with the train operator, where you're heading and what class you travel.

That said, you can pick up mobile broadband packages for around $10/month here with 1GB usage which should have coverage for most journeys in to London.

mobile broadband is pretty much useless on a train, at least in my experience on the edinburgh / london train (using a 3 dongle), you pretty much only get a connection when you are pulling into a station

east coast used to be free wifi, I think virgin charge? and crosscountry dont have it at all. damnit now I want this service for uk trains.

I've had the same experiences with all networks on trains, but for what it's worth, 3's mobile broadband is by far the worst in terms of both coverage and speed (from personal experience and that of numerous friends). I'm with vodafone now and they're great (trains excluded).

Some of the bus services have free wifi as well.

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