Southwest Airlines in-flight Wi-Fi test begins

By Tim Conneally | Published February 11, 2009, 5:15 PM

Over one year ago, Southwest Airlines announced its intention of bringing in-flight wireless internet to its passengers.

Yesterday, Yahoo said the tests will take place on a single plane starting this month, with three more equipped by March, all running on the same Row 44 system they noted last year. What does Yahoo have to do with it, you ask?

The search company helped build the free portal homepage that passengers will be connecting to. From it, they will be able to research their destination city, with news, weather and upcoming events, or they'll be able to choose from about a dozen Yahoo! Games. There will also be a location-sensitive flight tracker to chart progress and look at geo-tagged attractions 30,000 feet below you that you're missing. There is no word whether the flight tracking service will be available from the ground where it would be just as useful.

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"There is no word whether the flight tracking service will be available from the ground where it would be just as useful."

You can track a flight using flightstats.com. It shows you all the info you could ask for about any flight, and shows you the real time position of the plane on a map.

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