The Social

Ubiquitous caffeine conglomerate Starbucks has ended its Wi-Fi partnership with T-Mobile in favor of one with AT&T.

Under the earlier plan with T-Mobile, Starbucks customers needed a paid subscription to access the in-store Wi-Fi service, and T-Mobile HotSpot subscribers will continue to have access to Starbucks Wi-Fi thanks to an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile. But the new AT&T plan allows all customers 2 free hours per day, with a $3.99 fee for additional 2-hour chunks of time. Monthly subscriptions will cost $19.99 and will enable access to other AT&T hot-spot locations in addition to Starbucks.

In addition, AT&T broadband customers will be able to surf at the more than 7,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. for free. The new Wi-Fi partnership is expected to be introduced gradually at Starbucks locations this spring.

It's an understandable move on Starbucks' part; the coffee chain has a number of deals in place with Apple and its iTunes Store. Apple uses AT&T as the mobile service provider for the iPhone. Rumors of a Starbucks mobile ordering interface for the iPhone have been circulating for months.

The new partnership also extends to the business side of Starbucks: AT&T will also power an "enterprise class" network for internal operations.

The biggest problem with JetBlue's inaugural "BetaBlue" flight, equipped with Yahoo and BlackBerry e-mail and instant messaging, was the fact that there aren't power outlets on board the aircraft.

Sure, there are those little 110-volt things in each bathroom. But if you hog the airplane toilet so that you can give your laptop some juice, you're going to be the second most unpopular person on that flight. (The screaming kid in seat 15D still beats you.)

All joking aside, if in-flight Wi-Fi is going to take off, airplanes are going to need power outlets. Virgin America already has them, as do many pricier foreign airlines (some only in first class). So do high-end Amtrak trains, like the Acela Express line from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Sure, you might be able to make it from New York to Miami on your laptop battery, but New York to San Francisco just doesn't cut it, especially if you're not sure when you're going to be able to get to a power outlet on the ground.

As for the service itself, let's just say it's complicated. If BetaBlue's connection were my home ISP, I'd ask them to cancel my subscription; it was hardly ultra-reliable, and the instant-messaging application took quite a bit of time to boot up. But this was the first flight of a brand-new program, so I'll give JetBlue the benefit of the doubt here.

And JetBlue representatives, including a handful of engineers from its LiveTV division, which operates the Wi-Fi service, seemed quite thrilled when BetaBlue touched down. It didn't have to work perfectly. It just had to happen.

That's because the upside to BetaBlue (in addition to the fact that I was able to send IMs to every single one of my co-workers and say "Guess what?! I'm on a plane!!!") is that it was an actual realization of in-flight broadband access. In other words, JetBlue's extremely limited offering was potentially a kick in the pants to any other commercial carrier that's been wringing its figurative hands over a similar project. After the disaster that was Boeing's Connexion service, and the trepidation that followed, some airline needed to take that first step forward in order for Wi-Fi on planes to become a reality.

And there are going to be a ton of questions to answer. Will it be free? Ad-supported? Will there be a subscription charge? What if the guy in the seat next to you is looking at porn? Even worse, what if he plugs in a Skype headset and starts yakking away?

But at least the ball is rolling. TechCrunch reported last week that the Aircell service--which owns part of the same 800 MHz spectrum that hosts JetBlue's air-to-ground wireless--may soon make appearances on both Virgin America and American Airlines.

And additionally, I will remember BetaBlue fondly for this most paramount of reasons: it lifted me up from cold, rainy New York and planted me in the middle of a sunny, mild San Francisco day.

I'm typing this somewhere over Louisville, Ky. (or so the "live map" on my seat monitor tells me), on board JetBlue flight 641, a "BetaBlue" New York-to-San Francisco plane equipped with Yahoo and BlackBerry e-mail and instant-messaging access. And, yes, I've found a hack already--as it turns out, you have access to some of Yahoo's mobile site as well, enabling you to look up news headlines, finance information, weather, and a handful of other light mobile apps.

(Credit: JetBlue)

Once we reached an altitude of 10,000 feet, the flight crew told us we could check out the Wi-Fi service. I couldn't get it to load at all at first, so I closed up my Mac laptop (in the interest of preserving battery power) and watched an old episode of Saved by the Bell on the in-flight DirecTV system. Then, after the nail-biting suspense of wondering whether Zack and Kelly would get back together (they didn't), I tried the Wi-Fi again.

I was able to load up the Yahoo Mail in the Sky application, an ultra-light version of Yahoo Mail, but before I could send any messages, the system had faltered again. About five minutes later, I was able to ping CNET News.com's newsroom with a test message. I received three replies from my colleagues on the ground, but then the Wi-Fi started to fuzz in and out again.

The e-mail application is very light. You have access to your address book, but you can't send attachments, which is why you aren't seeing any awesome photos of me hanging out with the flight crew. It all reminded me of an ultra-low-end mobile browser, which leads me to the hack I found.

Indeed, as I learned, it's Yahoo Mobile. As it turns out the entire Yahoo Mobile domain (us.m.yahoo.com) is available on BetaBlue. This means that I was able to look up Yahoo News in its ultra-light mobile form, check the weather in San Francisco, and check sports scores. (No, you can't play fantasy football.)

As for instant messaging, it took quite a few tries before I was able to load Yahoo Messenger, but eventually it juiced up--and let me say that the instant-message application is much sleeker and impressive than the e-mail one. (Yahoo has said that a 2.0 version of its Mail in the Sky app is on the way.)

BetaBlue's Wi-Fi infrastructure clearly isn't ready for prime time, which is why I think it's ultimately a good idea that they've started small. Representatives from JetBlue's LiveTV division, which handles the service, said that the program will see expansions over the next few months.

There are still a few hours left in the flight, so I'm going to play with the Wi-Fi a bit more and maybe take a nap. Like I said in my pre-flight blog, planes are for sleeping.

(Credit: JetBlue)

Hello from John F. Kennedy International Airport, the establishment that some say is responsible for more New Yorkers' headaches than all the bars on Macdougal Street combined!

In a few minutes I'm scheduled to hop on board the inaugural flight of "BetaBlue," the JetBlue test flight equipped with access to Yahoo and BlackBerry e-mail and instant messaging. At present, I'm in the terminal at JFK waiting for the flight--which will touch down at San Francisco International Airport about six hours later

So here are a few of the things I'm hoping to explore...

-- Will the Wi-Fi actually work, or will the infrastructure falter when several dozen enthusiastic nerds attempt to log on? JetBlue has Wi-Fi in its JFK terminal, and it's notably less stable when there are more people attempting to use it.
-- How will the fact that there are no power outlets on the plane affect the experience? That's another luxury that we have here in the terminal. Some of JetBlue's competitors, like Virgin America, already offer in-flight Wi-Fi.
-- More excitingly, will anyone try to "hack" BetaBlue's Wi-Fi to provide access to more services?
-- Will I stay awake? Planes are for sleeping!

All right, there's my boarding call...see you at 35,000 feet.

If there were snakes on this plane, you could IM your friends and tell them.

Low-cost airline JetBlue has equipped one of its Airbus A320 planes with an onboard wireless network and has forged partnerships with Yahoo and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion to give passengers access to the companies' e-mail and instant messaging functions while in the air. The airline considers the plane, nicknamed "BetaBlue," to be an early-stage test as the company explores expanding in-flight communication options.

(Credit: JetBlue)

Passengers won't be able to surf the full Web. But if they bring Wi-Fi-equipped laptops along, they can access lightweight versions of Yahoo e-mail and instant messaging services; BlackBerry owners who have Wi-Fi-enabled handsets (the BlackBerry 8820 and BlackBerry Curve 8320) will be able to access their personal and corporate e-mail. BlackBerry models that have only cellular connections rather than Wi-Fi won't be compatible--the Federal Communications Commission still has a ban on cellular service in-flight.

The plane will take its inaugural flight on Tuesday morning, making the cross-country trip from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to San Francisco International Airport. After that, "BetaBlue" will be added to JetBlue's regular flight lineup; a company representative told CNET News.com that there will be no way to specifically request the messaging-equipped plane, nor will any additional fee be charged for the service.

It's been known for well over a year that JetBlue had been planning some sort of in-flight wireless initiative. LiveTV, a division of the airline, was awarded a 1MHz air-to-ground wireless license from the FCC in June 2006, following an intense bidding war. After 120 bids, LiveTV paid $7 million for the license, which offers full coverage of the continental U.S. above 10,000 feet. Another company, AirCell, obtained a 3MHz license for $31.3 million in the same FCC auction.

Earlier this year, JetBlue representatives hinted that they were interested in exploring options for in-flight text messaging--but that would require a relaxation of the FCC's stringent regulations.

As the major players in the airline industry compete with one another in an increasingly tech-savvy world, carriers have touted in-flight tech innovations like satellite TV service and electrical power connections. JetBlue already offers DirecTV service, as well as XM satellite radio on some of its newer planes. When Virgin America first took off in August, geeks drooled over the USB and power connections, MP3 library, and a messaging service that lets lonely passengers strike up conversations with fellow travelers on the same plane.

But when it comes to communication services (Virgin America's intra-plane messaging aside), there have been some major momentum issues. Cell phone use on planes is still a contentious topic, but it's nevertheless likely imminent on some foreign carriers and some wireless companies see it as a potential source of profit.

Broadband Internet is a different story. Connexion, a paid in-flight broadband service from Boeing, was used by a number of foreign airlines, like Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, before it was officially shut down at the end of 2006. There's been no word from Panasonic recently on a rumored plan to succeed where Connexion had failed.

And when BetaBlue takes off on Tuesday, it will make the Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue the first domestic airline carrier to offer any kind of wireless service in the air. Virgin America's planes have Ethernet ports at each seat, but they remain inactive.

JetBlue representatives said that if BetaBlue proves successful, expansions to the program will become evident over the next year. This would possibly include either installing the Yahoo and RIM services on other planes, or expanding the wireless offerings.

The area of Manhattan that will be equipped with CBS-provided Wi-Fi.

(Credit: CBS Corp.)

A chunk of 36 city blocks in Manhattan will have free, ad-supported public Wi-Fi access by the end of November, thanks to a new initiative from CBS Corporation in conjunction with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and New York City Transit.

Called the CBS Mobile Zone, this area of coverage will stretch through a bustling, tourism- and business-heavy swath of midtown from 42nd Street north to Central Park south, from Sixth Avenue west to Eighth Avenue. (Landmarks-wise, that's roughly Times Square to Columbus Circle.)

The new effort will be supported largely by advertising. Upon logging on, Web surfers will come to a home page with "hyperlocal content such as breaking local and national news, sports highlights, weather reports, music discovery, wallpapers, ringtones, maps, a social network, and the ability to search for nearby restaurants, shops and entertainment complete with geographically-targeted community reviews," according to a release from CBS. Citi and Salesgenie.com have signed on as sponsors. Some businesses within the midtown zone will also be equipped with routers to take advantage of the Internet access.

At this point, however, it's only a six-month test, or as CBS calls it, a "pilot program." After all, the future of public Wi-Fi programs remains hazy as municipal plans continue to stall across the country.