That's right folks, at right, your looking at the latest and greatest in mobile internet technology. Southwest has launched the first ever satellite-fed WiFi for commercial airliners. What you see in the picture is an antenna that Aerosat Corporation developed. The antenna is able to track and hold a WiFi satellite signal as the airplane pitches, rolls, and yaws (as a satellite antenna has to be pointed exactly at the satellite in order to get the signal properly). It's able to accomplish this using a complex computer tracking program, which was developed over an 18 month period of testing. On a test flight, one of the technicians reported getting 54 Mbps connection speed! Regular broadband gets about 2.1Mbps. Check out this podcast at Southwest for an up-close perspective on the technology!
