Fliers will soon be getting jet-fast Wi-Fi access and other good things

I have flown some cross-country flights in past and have been slightly aggravated by the slowness of the internet access.  I say “slightly” as I had no expectation of getting any speed.

If you fly Virgin Airlines, you will be soon getting four times the speed in your Wi-Fi internet connection.  A new service called ATG-4 will give you a blinding speed compared to the previous access you are used to.

The Wi-Fi connection itself is not the bottleneck, but the satellite service connecting the aircraft to the internet is the slowest part of the connection.  Gogo has figured a way to speed this up by possibly changing out the receiving equipment.

Gogo, which provides satellite-based in-flight Wi-Fi service, will be upgrading Virgin Airlines services for the faster ATG-4 service.  This upgrade should be completed within the first half of 2012.

Gogo provides the in-flight Wi-Fi service on a total on nine airlines.  They are Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska Airlines, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways and Virgin America.

That will leave eight more airlines that may need the Gogo ATG-4 fast internet, especially if they want to keep their internet-savvy passengers from flying to airlines that do have the ATG-4 service.  There is no word as to when these other airlines will be upgrading.

Imagine half of the aircraft passengers playing World of Warcraft at the same time.  BTW, if you fly a lot on one of these airlines, enter the Free Gogo For Life +$10,000 contest.  If you win, let me know!