JetBlue launched
a crippled WiFi service yesterday – well ahead of schedule, since it seemed
in July that JetBlue wifi wasn’t going to arrive until 2010. So props to them
for getting this thing off the ground before Row44 and AirCell and Panasonic
are really in business. But really, the idea of limiting WiFi usage to Yahoo
Mail and the Blackberry Curve – that’s just pathetic. I can understand
that JetBlue might have bandwidth issues which means it doesn’t want everybody
surfing the web at the same time. But there should be some way of allowing anybody
to email text-only messages without limiting usage to those passengers with
Yahoo accounts.
Caroline McCarthy describes
the JetBlue offering as "an ultra-low-end mobile browser" –
and it seems to be a pretty
unreliable one at that. I don’t think the Row44 people are going to be at
all worried by this competition, and I’m still looking forward to real
in-flight WiFi early next year.