Row 44 Discloses Upcoming Airline Tests

Row 44 is flying some journalists around in an old plane to show off their satellite-based service: At CES, the LA Times’s David Colker was flown up in a 1950s seaplane to test the offering. But, more importantly, Row 44 told him that public tests will finally take place on Alaska and Southwest scheduled flights this month. (Colker’s closing paragraphs make it seem that he hasn’t heard of Internet service from Aircell on American, Delta, and Virgin, limited as that service currently is.)

Row 44 has been talking about its plans for at least two years. The firm says it has cheaper equipment that’s far faster than Boeing’s, even though it uses the same Ku-band satellite communications. The company told me long ago that they have cleverer transponder licenses that don’t lock them into the same cash-hemorrhaging situation that Connexion found itself in.

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