Jetblue’s wireless starts next week

To update you on the story that Erik posted earlier, it has been confirmed that JetBlue is launching its wireless product on (one of) their airplanes next week.

But with a hitch.

Due to marketing partnerships that the company has forged with Yahoo and Blackberry, fliers will only be able to check their Yahoo mail wirelessly. They can also use one of two approved Blackberry models to get onto the Jetblue network and check personal and work email, but only on those two models.

My preliminary data indicate that this should make about 7% of Jetblue fliers happy while pissing off the other 93% who don’t use Yahoo mail or a crackberry.

Apparently, general surfing is still not allowed; they haven’t got the bandwidth yet to cover it. Not to worry though — most forward thinking airlines including Alaska Air, Soutwest and Virgin America have plans to integrate wireless in the next year or so. I think that sooner or later Jetblue will open up their bandwidth as well.

Via MSNBC