By Star Chang, posted Nov 14, 2011 at 7:32 AM, 286 views,

China Airline offers Intranet Service on Domestic Flights

Chinese airline companies will begin offering wireless network on flights in China. Air China will become the first airline to provide passengers with wireless intranet service. Yes, you read that right, it’s intranet, not internet ! Chinese passengers will only be able to use the service to access the craft’s intranet network, allowing them to play games and shop online but not to surf the World Wide Web. Air China will conduct a trial flight with no passengers aboard to test the network server and equipment. The company will conduct more experiments to estimate the costs of the service …

Air China teamed up with state-run telecom carrier China Telecom to explore the possibility of using cell phones and internet service on its planes. The company’s goal is to offer network services on its major domestic flights. The airline plans to start offering the service on single-aisle planes and then extend it to wider jets. However, many see the development as underwhelming since it will not allow users to surf the internet. The service will allow users to connect only with a server inside the cabin, not with the actual internet connection. Laptops and tablets with wifi access will be able to connect, but mobile phones with wifi will be out of this.

Some frequent Chinese flyers still welcomed the news and said the service would allow them to use their own electronic devices to watch and choose entertainment programs on smaller planes. But they can’t check their email or update their microblog, and could’nt use the instant messenger to chat online. Users will only be able to use the intranet to chat with other passengers on the same flight. And those so-called ‘online’ shopping, passengers can only use the wifi to shop the same skymall as it’s already existed on the plane. Gaming might be the only good thing for this service. Passengers might have the chance to play those role-playing multiplayer games at 30,000 feet !

Meanwhile, the wifi intranet service will properly be free. Air China’s goal is to eventually provide broadband Internet access on all flights, they hope to give the Chinese passengers a free or an even better inexpensive experience. But before doing that, the company wants to obtain further cost estimates.

Source: CHINADAILY, sina Tech, SINA weibo@airchina (in Chinese)