The service, normally $13 per flight, will now be open to all. It's good news for Virgin travelers, and it will make booking flights to CES a bit easier, decision wise. Whether or not the equipment on Virgin's planes can handle everybody hopping online at once, however, remains to be seen. [Google Blog via TechCrunch]

All 100 of Virgin's daily flights will have Wi-Fi, costing $12.95 for flights > 3 hours, $9.95 for flights < 3 hours, $5.95 for red-eyes and $7.95 if you just want to use your cellphone/PSP. Virgin's already our favorite airline just for being a nice airline, so being able to get Wi-Fi on all flights just makes it better. [Virgin America]

1. Your last bastion of Internet Free peace is gone. Forever. You'll be forced to work on flights instead of valium napping or reading comic books, and your boss will expect you to be checking email. Time to plan a camping trip.
2. Total bandwidth is not as fast as Cable Modem, but it seems faster than slow DSL. (We were sharing 3.6Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up, which isn't bad at all, on this Virgin America test flight, and it felt this fast when benching.)
3. But bandwidth is shared between customers. Aircell's GoGo a 3GHz EVDO-Rev A related tech modded for ground to air, started crawling as soon as other passengers signed on. (I got a test result measuring 66kbps down at one point, but Ryan showed about a mbit down. )
4. You have to pay. Virgin America charges, for example $9.95 for flights under 3 hours, and $12.95 on flights over 3 hours.
5. You will still need to close your laptops and shut off your devices until you reach cruising altitude.
6. Most airlines, even those that are not blocking ports, are blocking known VOIP ports. For our sanity. Although I WAS able to initiate a really solid iChat video session, but they may filter this on real flights. (See Below, courtesy of Nick Bilton from the NYTimes.)
7. Although plenty of airlines will have Wi-Fi by the end of next year, I prefer Virgin America because they've got 110v AC power plugs in coach.
8. WiFi porn won't be blocked by Virgin America (or American Airlines according to a test we performed earlier this week). But blocking porn is silly — people can easily play porn on DVDs or predownloaded files, but people generally have refrained so there's no reason to think they'll do otherwise now.
9. Flights using Go Go service will be able to connect to a VPN.
10. You can file share with other computers on the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi network. That's good for gaming, but also, make sure your firewall is up.

Most of this applies to Virgin and GoGo's set up, but since GoGo will be providing service for companies like Delta and AA and eventually more, much of this will apply to other airlines.

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]

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]

Yep, starting next year, Virgin America flights will have Wi-Fi in the air as well as Ethernet jacks at every seat and connectivity on their seatback computers. You'll be able to check your email, IM, play Nintendo DS games against your buddies on the ground, and basically thank your lucky stars that you aren't on a US Airways flight the whole time you're in the air. So awesome. Now all they need to do is start servicing more cities. [Virgin America]

Virgin, for the unfamiliar, has state-of-the-art planes that play Doom and have loads of music and video streaming appliances in every seat. It's essentially the ultimate airline for nerds who have to travel (us).

Their PR folks say they have a few more stages to get through, but if everything goes correctly they should be up in the air by summer. – Jason Chen

Virgin America Gets Permission To Fly [Jaunted]

For comfort, they've got adjustable headrests and "more knee room" than other seats.

What's also cool is the touchscreen feature on the back of every seat. There are music, games, and movie features, plus you can chat with people in other seats or go into a chatroom for the WHOLE PLANE. "OMG LOLZ WE GONS DIE!!!!~!!111oneone11" – Jason Chen

let VA Fly [Thanks Charles!]