On Virgin America's inaugural GoGo WiFi flight: this post published from 35,000 feet

So I took a little a break from working on gdgt to get on Virgin America's inaugural Aircell GoGo WiFi party flight, posting this at altitude. If you haven't already caught one of the early Aircell flights on Delta, American, or Air Canada, their now-active GoGo service provides in-flight internet. So far, as far as party planes go, this one hasn't been too raucous -- probably because everyone's been geeking out on their laptops.
Quick facts:

• The service is a shared high-power EV-DO Rev. A connection, at 3.6Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream.
• By April, 100% of Virgin America's flights will have GoGo service. Dayumn! All GoGo service is $10 for short flights (under 3 hours) and $13 for longer flights (over 3 hours).
  
• So far I've been getting about 1Mbps down, and 200Kbps up -- pretty good considering that this is about as pinned as the system is going to get. There are only about 150 people on it right now, you know?
• Latency is between 200-500ms, sometimes higher. Reasonable latency, though.
  
• The system uses 802.11a/b/g, although it's an open AP (i.e. no encryption).
• Speaking of which, GoGo claims they'll support VPN, so expect that to work. SSH is iffy though -- it worked for us, but they don't really want people SSH tunneling (especially to do stuff like VoIP).
• Aircell intends to block voice and video chat to keep things less obnoxious for travelers. It's working in flight though -- people are doing iChat sessions. But part of this inaugural flight will have live YouTube streaming, so one should expect to have this cut off later.
• BitTorrent works! It's not crazy fast, but I'm peering with about 8 nodes. I wouldn't expect this to work when the service launches.
  
• GoGo has a built-in traffic shaper that keeps an eye out for those using more traffic than others. If you're consuming too much, it'll scale you back (although no one has a hard cap). If you're the only one on GoGo (say, on a red-eye at 4am) then you can go crazy, you won't be scaled back. Still, I'm sitting next to my old pal Brian Lam from Giz, and I'd wager the two of us are somehow taking up about 80% of the plane's bandwidth.
  
• Virgin America isn't filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser's private mode.

Any thing else you want to know?

[Jon @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:34PM]

RYAN! You've returned to Engadget!

[Ryan Block @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:37PM]

Technically I never left! Since I went to start gdgt with Peter, I've stayed on at Engadget as editor-at-large. Basically, that means I'll occasionally write bits for the site (like this) and serve in a broader advisory capacity. Stay tuned for gdgt, though!

[JohnTitor @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:38PM]

how come I never got any of your stuff

[nerdtalker @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:52PM]

Thank goodness Ryan hasn't left. Seriously.

Tell us how the speed varies (whether it starts feeling really slow as the flight goes on). EvDo is nice, but depending on your route, it isn't going to be perfect everywhere. Just keep us posted.

[derX @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:08PM]

"Virgin America isn't filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser's private mode." = xDD GOLD

Ryan, very subtle.

[JAmerican @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:06PM]

He's like Bill Gates. He throws a going away party but never leaves!

[Sisyphus @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:31PM]

How is it that Ryan gets to shamelessly promote his new site here whenever he wants?

[dreamer @ Nov 23rd 2008 12:23AM]

awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Atanas Boev @ Nov 23rd 2008 6:03AM]

Welcome back Ryan! I imagine you were doing something like this:
http://www.stane-island.net/dump/postingtoengadget.jpg

:)

[one90ohustla @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:33PM]

how many of the planes/flights will be equipped with this?

[Patrick @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:39PM]

doesnt matter as long as your on the right one... ;)

[bob sakamano @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:42PM]

GO RYAN GO RYAN!

[ubn2 @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:49PM]

read the article all of them.

[Aircell @ Nov 23rd 2008 2:27AM]

@ one90ohustla:

Several to start with. Unfortunately, we have only a limited amount of time to be able to equip each and every flight. This includes Virgin or any of our other partners' aircraft.

[OneLove @ Nov 24th 2008 11:10AM]

Why do I hate that face?

[jtaylorhoopla @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:34PM]

Well considering that you are in the sky, thats pretty good as far as speed go, some people dont even get that on the ground.

[thedesolate1 @ Nov 23rd 2008 12:41PM]

P0rn On A Plane!

On another note this is a lot cheaper than what they charge in some internet cafes in new york!
$1 for 10 minutes.

[Jake Lyon @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:34PM]

Off-topic, but cell phone usage? How is accessing the Wi-Fi on your cell phone?

[ace587 @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:38PM]

that i want to know, UMA ftw

[Aircell @ Nov 23rd 2008 2:27AM]

@ ace587

As I'm sure you are aware, every access point handles VoIP calls differently. We've done our best to optimize our access points for UMA traffic.

[KarlW @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:35PM]

Hey, Ryan's back!

[KRIS_C_123 @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:36PM]

quality photo

[EricC @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:36PM]

"Shared 3.6Mbps downstream (to the ground), and 1.8Mbps upstream (to the plane -- i.e. everyone on the plane is sharing 3.6Mbps of bandwidth for loading pages, downloading files, etc.)."

Am I the only one that is confused by this? "Downstream" usually means TO YOU (so, in this case, the plane), and "upstream" usually means FROM YOU (in this case, the 'ground'). Seriously, Engadget...WTF are you talking about?

[redcard @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:55PM]

No Stupid, downstream to your PC, upstream to your ISP

[EricC @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:56PM]

@ redcard: Yes, I know that. Read my post (if you can, that is; I got low-ranked because Engadget edited the stupid out of the article, despite the fact that I quoted the original text). That's exactly what I said, and isn't what Engadget said...hence my post. Thanks for calling me stupid and then agreeing with what I said, moron.

[dvsbstrd @ Nov 23rd 2008 1:08AM]

Ryan's post was perfectly clear.

You're the one who's confusing.

[EricC @ Nov 23rd 2008 10:17AM]

Ryan's post IS perfectly clear...following the edit. It was not prior to the edit. If it was, then why edit it at all?

I'm sorry my post was confusing to you. Good luck with your ESL courses.

[Atanas Boev @ Nov 23rd 2008 10:53AM]

of course it is confusing. you end up downloading files from a server below you, and uploading down to the earth.

its like the xkcd post about "the west" and "the east" :)

[EricC @ Nov 23rd 2008 4:47PM]

I guess that explains why I got low-ranked. So much for this being a techie site. Guess it's just a bunch of techie posers =)

[dvsbstrd @ Nov 23rd 2008 6:51PM]

This is an Apple blog.

If you're looking for general tech news, TUAW may be a better choice.

[Ross @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:38PM]

Do you get WiFI reception in the toilet? On a long haul flight, a laptop, internet. Hmmm.

[loocas @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:37PM]

Yeah, considering the air-bumps and all... Hmm.... ;)

[Atanas Boev @ Nov 23rd 2008 5:44AM]

you know, you can type "bare stewardessess" only using your left hand on a qwerty keyboard? (recent news at /.)
might be useful if you have wifi in the toilet.

[Samboini @ Nov 23rd 2008 6:28AM]

Atanas, technically youcan write anything with just your left hand on a QWERTY keyboard, assuming the operator has one at least.

[Phoenix @ Nov 23rd 2008 11:41AM]

Dude, you can type "Stewardess ass sex" with only your left hand.

Slightly more interesting, no?

[oliver hart @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:40PM]

Chicken or fish?

[Ross Young @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:01PM]

Ahh yes, i remember. I had Lasagna

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:32PM]

Coffee or tea?

[KeegdnaB @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:42PM]

5 dollar bottle of water? wait...this isn't US Airways.


Even so, domestic coach shouldn't expect real food regardless of airline

[SpydaKat 17 @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:05PM]

US Airways is fucking evil.

[anantha92 @ Nov 23rd 2008 3:16AM]

Whats the name of this fish again? Gefilte fish?

[Bala @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:41PM]

Here are the few things I'd like to know:

1. Could you try to use Skype Video and tell us how good the video/audio quality is?
2. What kind of WiFi networks are they using? 802.11a, b, or g?
3. Do they allow VPN connections?

[Arke @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:51PM]

He said it uses 802.11 a/b/g (yeah all of 'em)
And he mentioned the latency and bandwidth, which should give you the idea of how the Skype video will look like up there.

Now the only question you're left with is VPN, which I couldn't infer from the post. Maybe someone else can.

[Daniel @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:45PM]

So how much does this cost normally? like a 10000000$ a MB?

[iofthestorm @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:14PM]

Yeah, I'd like to know too, will be free or cost per megabyte or what?

[Nick @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:25PM]

According to Gizmodo it's $9.95 for flights under 3 hours, and $12.95 for flights over 3 hours.

[Nick @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:19PM]

Woops, then you'll have unlimited data.. It's not $9.95/$12.95 per MB, lol.

[Lance @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:46PM]

Never try using iVirgin iMericas inflight internet. They decided to use EDGE because EV-DO is a bag of hurt!

[Lance @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:03PM]

It was a joke, I'm not a fanboy or a troll, I own apple products and I like them!

[Reader @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:30PM]

Rofl.