Will Inflight WiFi come to South Africa by 2010?

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article about inflight WiFi in the USA. Apparantly an innovative company called Aircell “has installed its land-based Gogo Wi-Fi service on 526 aircraft for various airlines” in the USA.

WiFi on a plane though has not yet ‘taken off’ in South Africa. Lack of inflight power outlets and high bandwidth costs could be possible reasons for zero uptake of the service on the African continent. Then again legal restrictions on the use of mobile handsets onboard local flights and the initial cost of just over $100,000 to install the Aircell service, could also be causing problems.

An innovative new product is now available that removes one of the obsticles of inflight Wifi. The Inflight USB Power Unit developed by Caretools Inc, allows users to power most small handheld devices using the audio jack available on most local airlines flying in South Africa.

With power issues out of the way, only bandwidth costs and legal restrictions stand in the way of WiFi on a plane. During the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the whole world will have their eye’s on South Africa, it’s going to be interesting to see which South African airline is first to market with free or premium inflight WiFi.