Google gifts: free airline wifi for the holidays

Shameless plug: AirTran and Virgin have wifi available on every flight, but Delta does not. So, find out which flights to book on Delta @ http://www.haswifi.com

The economics of in-flight wifi assume that no more than a handfull of passengers are using the system, otherwise connectivity just gets jammed. By charging, you create the scarcity that makes such a system viable.

By offering it free, you potentially make it available to no-one as suddenly everyone who has a laptop (prob most people flying in/out of SFO for example) is going to want to get on.

If I was taking a cross-country flight this holiday, I'd rather the system stayed for $$ so that I knew that I had a chance to get access to a usable system rather than turn up for my flight expecting connectivity and end up bored and disappointed because I can't get any bandwidth.

This is not good timing for them.

http://gizmodo.com/5679794/all-these-terrorist-scares-are-pu...

I wonder if Gogo inflight can also fall victim to Firesheep? If I recall, it uses no security other than a authentication webpage.

More information here: http://www.freeholidaywifi.com

They offered free airport wifi last holidays - i specifically took notice if their branding because it was such a handy offer.