Row 44 stepping to the plate for Wi-Fi at Southwest
After two years of rumors and much uncertainty, a small company called Row 44 has landed a contract with Southwest Airlines to provide Wi-Fi service on the airline’s fleet of more than 540 planes.
“It is a tremendous boost for the small, 25-employee firm, which had been in a testing phase with Southwest since last year. Southwest said it would begin installing Row 44’s equipment in the second quarter at a rate of 15 to 25 aircraft per month,” says
With this schedule, Southwest will have the full fleet wired by 2012.
Still, a question remains: How much will passengers be asked to pay for the service?
“We don’t have an answer to that quite yet. We’re still testing,” said Dave Ridley, senior vice president of Southwest. He promised an answer in the second quarter of this year.
Texas-based Row 44, named after the last row on a DC-10 commercial jet, uses a network of telecommunications satellites belonging to Hughes Network Systems. By tapping into Hughes’ network,
Row 44 has the potential capability to provide worldwide Internet access.
By David Wilkening
David
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