That's right, AirTran is winning on two fronts. AirTran will be the first carrier to offer Wi-Fi on every single flight (granted, they're a smaller airline, so it's a much smaller feat than Delta is facing). And they charge a (slightly) reduced rate of $8 for using just your iPhone or BlackBerry on Wi-Fi, not the full $10 that's the going rate for flights under 3 hours.

Still, that little airlines like AirTran are ponying up is good for competition in one sense—the day before, Delta announced that half of their fleet had Wi-Fi and the rest will by September, a little ahead of schedule. And American Airlines is busy outfitting their fleet, too.

But the NYT raises a few sobering points about in-flight Wi-Fi: There's basically no evidence there's huge demand for the pricey service (nerds don't constitute huge demand and even some of them are skeptical, see point #1). Meaning the $100,000-per-plane systems could hobble the already gimply airline industry even more.

Also, many flights, unlike Virgin, don't have electrical outlets. Not to mention all the other stuff, like crappy bandwidth and the like. Still, I think the first flight I'm on with Wi-Fi, I'm going to at least try it. [NYT via ZDNet]

Hunched over his MacBook in coach "like a T-Rex," Siler was able to complete a battery of tests. The upload rate wasn't shabby; 257 Kbps was enough to let him upload a Flickr gallery, for one thing.

Since Speakeasy.net reported a respectable 658 Kbps download speed, it was no surprise that Siler reported A-OK on the all-important mid-flight pornage test. He was able to stream some nice naughty material, as you can see (artfully blacked out by me) in the screengrab above. (That's Wes, holding his ticket, in the Photo Booth shot next to it.)

The porn access should come as good news for people who fear that other mid-air nemesis, the Chatty Cathy: At least porn will keep some passengers distracted from voice chat, which worked all too well in our quick test. Truth be told, the only thing that didn't work was video chat—iChat just kept choking and crashing. Hey, something was bound to fail as Siler hurtled through the sky high above Nebraska at an air speed of 581 miles per hour.

If you've had any interesting in-flight Wi-Fi experiences, by all means share them in comments. [AA; Thanks Wes!]

Update: Here's how REAL it is—Siler just took a screenshot of this article while in the air and IM'd it to me:

Both Air Canada and Alaska are safe havens for unfettered access, at least for now. (VoIP is blocked though.)They're both holding off to see how things go without a content filter, and hope you read their terms of use. Virgin America is the best though, since they seem to be more philosophically opposed to a content filter than the others—their spokesperson said that they don't block content on their entertainment systems, so they plan to keep that in place for Wi-Fi.

Of course, no one can filter what you bring on the plane in your hard drive. And most airports have plenty of nudie magazines for sale all around the terminal. You know, if you're really that determined to look at boobs on a plane, but you could at least watch an arty movie with boobs to be somewhat less gauche. [MSBNC]

Since the launch of Gogo, American has not experienced any reported incidents of customers viewing inappropriate content via the Gogo service. However, we believe this is an appropriate measure to take.

If they have had no incidents—as expected, just as you don't hear of many people watching porn in their portable DVD players in a plane—, why give up? What happened to their technical arguments? Is the filtering going to limit web access to legitimate services or not? Most probably, American Airlines will avoid answering those questions.

But besides that, are they going to regulate people looking at porn on their own devices too? What about reading Playboy? Are they going to ban Playboy from flights? And are they going to filter Gizmodo because we post NSFW topless girls covered in oil playing Wii Sports once in a while?

Of course, logical questions like these will probably find no answers from American Airlines either. Religious groups like Focus on the Family, on the other side, would probably love to answer them with axes, pitchforks, and torches.

Another sad day in the history of a country that has defended personal freedom and responsibility as a core value since its very beginning. [Sky talk]

So unhappy that the flight attendant union began putting pressure on American to block porn content on their just-launched service (would you want to be the person to come between some crazy perv and his porn on a cross-country haul? Me neither). Delta is now planning to nip a potential flight attendant strike before things get out of hand. The filter, according to Delta, will be limited only to "sites that few, if any, would question are inappropriate to be viewed on an aircraft." [Atlanta Journal Constitution via Electronista]

It's also worth noting there's nothing new about passengers viewing offensive materials during a flight. Said Tim Smith, a spokesman for AA, "Customers viewing inappropriate material on board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews, who have always managed this issue with great success.''

So let's throw this out to the community today. Is porn on planes a problem for you? Should flight attendants have to become "moral policeman," as they fear they will become in the Bloomberg article? Should people who can't go without porn or violent imagery for the duration of a five-hour flight really be allowed to go on airplanes to begin with? By all means, dish. Just keep it, ah, clean. [Bloomberg via Wired]

FORT WORTH, Texas and ITASCA, Ill. - Marking the beginning of the next wireless revolution, American Airlines made history today with the launch of the mobile broadband service, Gogo(tm) provided by Aircell®.

Effective today, customers traveling on American’s Boeing 767-200 aircraft can access complete coast-to-coast coverage on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. American, the world’s largest airline and founding member of the oneworld® Alliance, and Aircell, the world’s leading provider of airborne communications, have joined together to bring the first full inflight broadband service to the U.S. market.

“We are pleased to provide our customers with the unprecedented ability to stay connected to their family, friends and business associates on the ground via the Internet while traveling at 30,000 feet above the United States,” said Dan Garton, American’s Executive Vice President - Marketing. “With today’s launch, American Airlines makes history as the first and only U.S. airline to offer customers full inflight Internet connectivity, demonstrating once again our industry leadership and focus on our customers.”

Aircell’s Gogo will be available to customers as a fee-based service in all cabins. Aircell will charge $12.95 on flights more than three hours, which include American’s Boeing 767-200 flights. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet access. Cell phone and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services are not available.

Gogo turns an American Airlines flight into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling passengers to surf the Web, check any email, Instant Message, access a corporate VPN, and more. Once the aircraft has reached 10,000 feet, users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, open their browsers and be directed to the Gogo portal page where they sign up and begin surfing. Gogo is powered by the Aircell air-to-ground (ATG) Broadband System, which runs over Aircell’s exclusive nationwide network.

“Today, U.S. air travel changes forever. With Aircell’s unique ATG inflight Internet service, airlines finally have an economically viable option for providing the broadband connectivity passengers are demanding,” said Jack Blumenstein, President and CEO, Aircell. “American Airlines is the first to bring inflight Internet to market, and today the days of being cut off from the rest of the world while in the air become history.”

Virgin America has been retrofitting their entire fleet with the necessary hardware whereas American Airlines is only running a trial on 15 planes. The service will bring a 2Mbps EVDO Rev. A connection and will actually be upgradeable to Rev. B or faster hardware in the future. So what's the fee for this magical in-flight service? Cross-country flights will cost $12.95 and shorter flights of 3 hours or less will be $9.95.

As for what limitations the airlines will set is still not clear, but with a spring launch, 2Mbs connection, and near $10 fee we can't help but be all hyped-up, so much so it's making us scream, "Let's gogo go!"[gogo via gigaom]

• American Airlines and Alaskan Airlines are saying ix-nay to Ype-Skay, but say there's no plan to lock out the nudie sites. The head of Aircell, which is wiring up these planes, cited a likelihood that "decency and good sense and normal behavior" will guide people's surfing decisions.

• Virgin America is considering a Skype ban. Virgin's director of in-flight entertainment cited concerns about passengers "yapping away or playing on a boom box." (Boom box? WTF?) Virgin will give parents the opportunity to control their kids net access, and may limit large downloads.

• Australia's Qantas Airways is testing high-speed net access by Panasonic Avionics Corp., which plans to block sites from "an objectionable list," including sites that feature porn or violence. (Note to grammar nuts: we're pretty sure they mean the sites are objectionable, not the list itself.) They may block Skype calls on the PC, but not on Wi-Fi handsets, which demand less bandwidth. Panasonic says that airlines could block incoming calls—and annoying ringtones.

• Air France is going to wait and see about its OnAir system for cellphone calls, setting up rules only after complaints start coming in. How laissez-faire!

The AP story also raises an important legal question: If you hack a website or engage in some RIAA-hatin' file swapping on a flight between New York and Nova Scotia, which country's laws apply? [AP; source image]

Instead they decided to hook up with Archos and offer the 605 PMP on domestic flights, or the 704 PMP on transcontinentals. But don't get too excited if you are flying domestically, the program currently only applies to flights between Chicago and LA. And will cost you $8, unless you're riding in style in business or first class.– Ben Longo

American Airlines to offer PMPs [Coolest Gadgets via Sci-Fi Tech]

[Edit: Fixed 3rd grade spelling mistakes.]