In-flight Internet access has had its up and downs, and, yes, this article will have its share of aviation-related puns. An aborted launch by Boeing in 2004 seemed to ground the idea, but a second attempt in 2008 has remained aloft. Each day, nearly 1,100 planes—totaling 4,000 flights carrying an average of 500,000 passengers—ply their way over America while carrying WiFi gear from Aircell. Meanwhile, other providers power a few hundred planes in the US and the rest of the globe with either full Internet access or, more commonly, limited GSM-based text and data service.

Despite the volume of equipped aircraft, we're still in the early days— and the continued availability of mile-high WiFi is certainly not guaranteed. It's an expensive, long-term investment to supply consistent and usable broadband Internet service at 35,000 feet. Surveys show people want access, but it's unclear how much (or even if) they'll pay for it. Aircell says that 20 percent of passengers on equipped cross-country flights use its service, but it's mum about numbers on shorter segments.

Nonetheless, installations are only increasing at the moment, and no airline has pulled the plug in more than two years of buildouts. Once an airplane has been wired for service, debt service on the installation and money to cover ongoing costs become the primary concerns. Momentum may carry onboard access through this bumpy period.

In this 35,000-foot overview, we'll look at the history of in-flight Internet, the state of the art, and where things are going, with a tour of the technology employed today and tomorrow.

Where it began

Once upon a time, Boeing had a brilliant idea to combine its satellite savvy and plane-building expertise into a separate business division that would carry high-speed signals from geostationary satellites into receivers that it would custom-fit into its own and others' planes. "Connexion by Boeing" was its name.

The problem? Boeing predicated the business on having substantial presence in the US market where record profits were being earned, and it signed agreements with three airlines a few months before September 11, 2001. The collapse of the airline industry and the larger economy after the terrorist attacks on that date led Boeing's partners to retreat from the Connexion deal, which undermined the financial viability of the offering. Boeing then refocused on over-water, long-haul flights, which seemed like the lowest-hanging fruit.

But Connexion had other problems. While bandwidth wasn't a problem‚ with reported speeds of about 5Mbps down and 1Mbps up per plane‚ installation and ongoing expenses were an issue. Initial installations could take weeks, which translates into money lost from a productive plane on which a lease is being paid, and total installation cost could reach $500,000 per plane, according to contemporary reports.

Boeing's retrofits eventually became faster, but they couldn't get around the weight of the gear plus its drag, which added up to an effective several hundred pounds. This placed a heavy burden on Internet revenue from each flight; if a few dozen people on every plane didn't pony up for access, Connexion was a net loss to carry.

Boeing also had to bear the massive cost of transponder leases. As I'll explain later, Connexion used Ku-band satellites, each of which can have dozens of transponders, all pointed toward an optimal region of the globe. For better capacity and coverage, Boeing reportedly leased 150 up/downlink pairs of transponders at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. (Boeing never confirmed this figure, which may be overstated.)

Pricing was troublesome. I never thought Boeing was overcharging for the kind of serious business user they were targeting for long-haul flights (from 6 to 14 hours), but there was a lot of carping about the cost. At launch in 2004, service was tiered between $15 for flights under three hours and $30 for six-hour-and-longer trips. Several months before the service was discontinued, pricing switched to a weird model for continuous access: $10 for 1 hour, $15 for 2 hours, and $18 for 3 hours; $26 bought 24 hours of access across any Connexion-equipped flights.

The cost to airlines‚ some of which was apparently absorbed by Boeing‚ led to few planes having the service installed at first. The final count was in the hundreds when Boeing pulled the plug in late 2006. The cost to passengers seemed to keep usage relatively low, and without knowing whether any given plane might have service, customers couldn't expect access, which might have driven up usage. Lufthansa was the most committed airline, with all its dozens of long-haul craft set up before Connexion shut down.

It didn't help that Boeing's service launched while WiFi was still ramping up as a ubiquitous mobile feature. (Some aircraft even included Ethernet jacks for the service.) Smartphones and organizers largely lacked WiFi, or burned battery life quickly if they used it. Laptops had WiFi, but users didn't have the same obsession with always staying online.

A new beginning

While it was clear that satellite-based Internet access was workable, the cost structure Boeing had established was not. As the industry shook itself out, and firms like Panasonic Avionics and OnAir also tried to figure out models that would work, the FCC finalized a plan to transform access in American skies.

The FCC had approved limited air-to-ground (ATG) radiotelephone service in the 1980s for in-flight calling, and then offered licenses to six firms in 1990. Few launched commercially. In the end, only AirFone‚ ultimately run by a division of Verizon‚ was left standing, charging dollars per minute for calls and low-speed dial-up data. Its use of a sliver of bandwidth was inefficient in two directions: as an analog service, it was capable of handling only 10 calls at a time, making poor use of the spectrum; by the end of its life, only two to three calls were made on each flight. Those seatback phones were becoming as redundant by the mid-2000s as pay phones in airports.

The FCC decided to auction off the 4MHz (in the 850MHz band) allotted to this service for digital air-to-ground use to provide services to passengers and airlines. It was assumed that Internet service would be the primary purpose, supplemented by onboard cellular base stations (so-called picocells) potentially providing voice, text, and data links for hardware without built-in WiFi. But airlines might piggyback on the system for non-critical communications, too.

In 2006, the FCC created a wacky kind of auction in which bids were accepted on different plans for splitting the band up into pieces. The winner was the most sensible offering: one firm paid for 3MHz and another for 1MHz. (The bandwidth was divided into 1.5MHz and 0.5MHz paired uplink/downlink channels.)

Aircell won the larger chunk. The firm had spent nearly 20 years trying to convince the FCC to allocate air-to-ground spectrum for provide greater competition and better utility. JetBlue's LiveTV in-flight entertainment division won the 1MHz, and we're still wondering what they'll do with it. (From a more exact business perspective, Aircell received a significant investment before the auction by a private-investment firm that created a separate spectrum-holding company to bid on the auction. That company won, and Aircell has assignment rights.)

Air-to-ground communications have a variety of advantages over air-to-space connections. Aircell had already built a network for general aviation (non-commercial, private) phone and other services, so it had experience. It was able to use existing cellular facilities used by other telecoms with antennas pointing up instead of around. And Aircell could own its equipment instead of lease usage, as with satellites.

Even though the license limited Aircell to the United States, that still encompassed a huge number of planes and flights and it kept the company from having to build a global business initially. Still, Aircell had to convince airlines that it could deliver on performance, generate revenue, and, potentially, fill more seats at higher prices for as long as Internet access was a bonus amenity offered only by specific airlines. (If it's a success and most planes have access, it's hard to advertise the feature to attract customers from other airlines.)

In November 2008, Aircell launched its service as Gogo Inflight Internet with nary a thigh-high white boot in sight. I was on the inaugural Virgin America flight, and filed this report from the air for BoingBoing TV. In between gaping at supporting actors from 30 Rock, trying to identify YouTube celebrities, and drinking non-virgin Virgin drinks, we found that even a planeful of journalists were able to connect to the 'Net most of the time.

It wasn't long before the service expanded.

Aircell's thousand-plane coverage

Virgin America was Aircell's launch airline, and it put the service on its couple dozen planes rather quickly. AirTran (currently being acquired by Southwest) later joined Virgin in (un)wiring its entire fleet of 138 mainline planes. Alaska Airlines also went for a full deployment for its 115 mainline planes; it's now about halfway there. (Mainline planes are the larger jets, like 737s or Airbus A320s used for regional and national travel. They complement regional aircraft, both jets and turboprops, with smaller passenger capacity that are used for short and medium hops.)

There's little else left up for grabs in the domestic market, as all carriers with over 50 mainline planes are signed up with one party or another.

A bigger coup for Aircell was a commitment from Delta, which eventually agreed to put Gogo on its entire mainline fleet of now 550 planes, accomplished earlier this year. American Airlines came along more slowly, first agreeing to put service in about 300 of 620 planes. In early May, however, American expanded that commitment to nearly its entire fleet. At least 200 planes are currently equipped, and all should be set with WiFi service by mid-2012.

United and US Airways have a small number of kitted craft. United's fleet of 13 cross-country 757-200s have had the Gogo service for some time, and US Airways put the service on a seeming trial on 50 Airbus 321s. (United has a total of 450 mainline planes, and US Airways nearly 320.)

Air Canada also has some in-flight service on an unknown number of its 37 Airbus A319s. The service is only legal to operate on portions of routes within the United States.

This accounts for the nearly 1,100 planes that Aircell totals up on its site. It's likely to increase that total to as many as 1,500 planes by the end of 2011, but current commitments put it to under 2,000 through 2012. Delta's regional planes (about 220) will be equipped by the end of 2011; the rest of Alaska will come this year; and Frontier will put service on 32 regional jets.

The upper limit, of course, is the number of planes actually in service. In 2010, US airlines had about 3,700 mainline jets and 2,600 regional jets and other types of craft. Regional jets generally have too little capacity for inflight Internet to make financial sense; Frontier and Delta are the two frontrunners experimenting with those smaller planes. (Hundreds of planes remain parked in desert landing strips, mothballed and possibly never to fly again. More may join them as airlines push a strategy of smaller fleets to push up scarcity and increase prices based on demand.)

Aircell's CEO Michael Small told me that regional jets of 70 or more seats fit into a profile where it might make sense to add service, partly because it completes a network like Delta, giving flyers service from one end of a trip to another on the same airline. That increases usage across the airline and leads to purchases of day passes and subscriptions. Smaller planes would be less profitable, but Aircell has its broadband service on 500 private planes (and an older voice and data service on 4,500 others), so it can be done.

While Aircell's license is only good for the United States, it expects that if the stars align it will partner with firms in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, just as the Airfone service operated. Aircell's Small said the traffic relative to the United States is low enough that the company has to find the right partner to make the business case. From a deployment perspective, though, it wouldn't be difficult at all.

There are also a couple thousand planes that routinely fly over water on international routes, and several thousand craft in use domestically and internationally over land. Satellite service will drive those markets‚ if it can prove viable. Which brings us to pricing.

Aircell pricing

Aircell's greatest achievement may be a single pricing structure across all the airlines with which it's partnered. Its biggest mistake may be the crazily large number of pricing options: 10 separate dollar amounts are listed on its pricing page. This is too many for any normal human being to integrate into decision making.

(One tip: if you're going to use Gogo on a flight, set up an account with credit-card information before you go using a computer's browser. It's much simpler to do so while you're not squeezed into a seat, and you don't have to expose your credit-card number to seatmates. You'll especially appreciate having an account set up when you use Gogo with a mobile device, like a smartphone. You can also install a BlackBerry or iOS app for a simpler connection process.)

Let's take this category by category:

Unlimited service. Aircell offers four kinds of unlimited monthly services. For $35 a month with automatic renewal, you can use any number of sessions on all airlines. If you want to buy 30 days at a time, it's $30 for a single airline or $40 for all airlines with no automatic renewal. For mobile devices, 30 days costs just $20.

24-hour pass. For $13, you can use any number of sessions on all equipped planes. If you have at least two flight segments and any are longer than 1.5 hours, this is cheaper than buying two separate sessions.

Laptop or tablet session. Gogo separates this out by duration: you pay $5 for flights of up 1.5 hours (or 650 miles), $10 for 1.5 to 3 hours (up to 1,150 miles), and $13 for anything over 3 hours or a longer distance.

Smartphones and small mobile devices, like the iPod touch. Gogo apparently characterizes the iPad and other tablets as not being "mobile devices," for which you have to pay full freight. The Mobile Pass for smartphones et al. is $5 for flights 1.5 hours or shorter, and $8 otherwise.

Aircell once had a cheap redeye option for overnight flights, but it's no longer listed.

On a given flight, you're only presented with valid options, which could still total five on a laptop or tablet and four on a mobile device. Some airlines indicate at the time of booking whether WiFi is available on a flight, and some allow prepurchase of a session along with a ticket and discounts. Delta, for instance, sells the $13 24-hour pass for $11, limited to Delta flights.

The missing component in all these pricing options is bundling: if you're traveling with multiple bits of hardware, such as a smartphone, tablet, and laptop (don't laugh, because you know you've already done it), you could pay a separate fee for each.

Aircell says that with a laptop session or plan, you can switch between a laptop and a mobile device or tablet so long as you use only one active session at a time. You have to log out from one device to log in to the other. Mobile plans and passes can only be used among mobile devices.

Growing interest

Even while Aircell was setting up its network in the time between winning the FCC auction in 2006 and launching commercial service in 2008, other firms were trying to get their satellite-based projects off the ground.

The most notable of those in the US is Row 44, a firm full of executives from the satellite and chipmaking worlds, which decided to focus on making satellite-backed airborne service work in a limited area. By restricting service to just North America, the company reduced transponder costs enormously. It also has told me several times over the years that its gear and antenna are substantially lighter weight and have less drag than Connexion's, while it was able to ratchet up bandwidth substantially by using more efficient equipment.

The company started up in 2004, and it took until 2009 to begin trials. It initially garnered commitments from Alaska Airlines and Southwest, but lost Alaska to Aircell after long delays in deployment. Alaska flies a large number of overwater flights to both Alaska and Mexico, and Aircell wasn't a perfect fit, but apparently close enough, and it added several ground stations in that state. In a similar vein, geostationary satellite signals can barely reach most of Alaska, so ground stations likely provide more consistent and better service than a satellite approach.

Southwest expects all its 550 planes to have Row 44's service enabled by 2013, and hasn't announced milestones for service. For now, the price is $5 per flight regardless of duration. There are no day passes or other discount. That's blissfully simple.

Elsewhere in the States, JetBlue still mystifies me, if not other observers. The firm's LiveTV division, noted above, has 1MHz of air-to-ground spectrum over which they could offer certain kinds of services to passengers, but which, so far, has not been deployed for commercial aviation. It seems to be using it, at least in part, for private planes. (The auction requirements for the band had a specific buildout mandate for the larger band that Aircell won. JetBlue's sliver, which cost about $7 million, was exempted from a build requirement. But the license expires in 2016, at which point the FCC can demand reassignment if JetBlue hasn't produced a worthwhile-enough service.)

JetBlue has chosen, instead, to focus on satellite, which might make sense since LiveTV already uses a satellite system to pull in television programming for the airlines it serves. JetBlue's announcement in April was that it would hold out for a Ka-band satellite link, which requires waiting for a particular bird to be lofted this summer. JetBlue says it will start up the service in 2012 on its own planes, followed by those of Continental. But that may be an optimistic launch window.

If I sound dubious about LiveTV, it's because they spent a few years flying a single plane using the old narrowband analog AirFone technology to allow limited BlackBerry-based email, text-messaging, and instant messaging as a demonstration of Internet service. The BetaBlue plane was an odd throwback, and JetBlue flew it for far too long, finally abandoning the approach in mid-2010.

JetBlue's service will let it expand more easily outside North America, as satellites know no borders, although each country's air authority has to provide specific certification of airworthiness for any electronic gear and external antennas installed. In practice, that process has come a long way as more providers offer satellite-based services.