双语新闻 数字生活：在飞机上上网
Internet-A-Gogo: Airlines To Offer In-Flight AccessAttention, laptop-toting U.S. airline passengers! You are either about to become much more productive and happy, or to lose one of your last refuges from the digital deluge that afflicts your life.
Beginning this summer, as soon as next month, wireless Internet access will arrive in the passenger cabins of some commercial U.S. airliners.
On these Internet-equipped planes, any passenger with a Wi-Fi enabled laptop -- or a cellphone with Wi-Fi -- will be able to do almost everything he or she could do online at home or at the office. That includes surfing the Web, using email, having instant-messenger text chats, downloading and uploading files, and streaming video and audio.
In fact, I did all these things a few days ago on a test flight using the new system, called Gogo. During the flight from San Francisco to Denver, on a small test jet, I could operate online as if I were sitting at my desk, or in a Starbucks. I used Dell and Apple laptops, a BlackBerry, a Windows Mobile phone and an iPhone to perform all the most common online tasks, while soaring over majestic mountains and glorious national parks.
I sent and received emails on Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, including messages with hefty attachments. I conducted IM chats on AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk. Using all the major Web browsers, I called up dozens of Web sites, and watched video clips on Hulu and YouTube. I downloaded photos, songs, PDF files and Microsoft Office documents. I used all the Internet functions on the iPhone, and on the Wi-Fi-equipped BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phone.
One important caveat: Gogo is a data-only system. It doesn't allow phone calls and will block all services that allow voice conversations to be made over the Internet.
Gogo will launch on three American Airlines routes, likely in July. The first planes to use it will be American's 15 Boeing 767s flying between New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. Later in the year, Gogo will be available on all of Virgin America's small number of routes, and possibly additional American routes, if the first deployment works well. It's supplied to the airlines by a Denver-based company called Aircell, which says it is in negotiations to offer the Gogo service on several other major U.S. airlines by next year.
The Gogo service will cost a flat fee of $12.95 for flights of three hours or longer, and $9.95 for shorter trips. You log into Gogo as you would any commercial Internet service, registering on a special Web page. Aircell plans to allow advance sign-up, so you'd only have to enter an ID and password on the plane. No add-on software, hardware or cables are required.
A few Web functions will be offered free from Gogo, including access to the American Airlines Web site, to Frommer's online travel guides and to a limited selection of articles from The Wall Street Journal.
Gogo isn't the first in-plane Internet service. A few years ago, Lufthansa offered a satellite-based service from Boeing, mainly on over-ocean flights, but it was canceled.
The service operates at respectable, if not blazing, speeds -- similar to what you'd get on a cellular broadband service or a slow home DSL line. On my test flight, download speeds varied from 266 kilobits per second to about 1.4 megabits per second, with the most typical speeds hovering between 500 and 600 kbps. Upload speeds were between 250 and 300 kbps. I found that most of the tasks I tested, except for streaming video, felt smooth and normal.
Speeds could degrade on a large plane with scores of people online simultaneously. But Aircell claims it has the technology to make my experience representative for anyone doing common tasks, such as Web surfing and email. During my test flight, eight laptops and six Wi-Fi-enabled smart phones were using the system simultaneously. All registered decent speeds, except for a couple of minutes when the plane was crossing between the zones controlled by the company's ground-based towers.
Aircell gets Internet access to the planes through a network of 92 towers scattered across North America. These essentially are cellphone towers, carrying a high-speed cellphone data signal, except that the Aircell antennas point up, into the sky. A receiver on the underside of the aircraft picks up the signal, which is then distributed through the plane via Wi-Fi.
The companies say Gogo is safe and won't interfere with the plane's operation. It is government-approved, and pilots can shut the system off should they deem it necessary.
Gogo has some limitations. The service plans to allocate its capacity so that low-bandwidth activities like Web surfing and email take priority over high-bandwidth ones like streaming video. That means you may find video to be slow and halting.
And Gogo is a North American, land-based service only. It won't work over the oceans and, for now, it won't work on other continents.
But for U.S. travelers who want to stay connected in the air, Gogo does the job.
数字生活：在飞机上上网
携带笔记本电脑搭乘美国各航空公司班机的乘客，请注意：你的飞行旅程将从此变得更高效、更愉悦；你也将就此失去逃离数码世界的最后一片净土。
最早从2008年7月份开始，部门美国民用航空公司的航班上将提供无线上网服务。
在能无线上网的航班上，只要携带有Wi-Fi上网功能的笔记本电脑、或有Wi-Fi功能的手机，乘客就能像在家或办公室一样使用各种网络功能，比如浏览网页、收发电子邮件、网聊、下载和上传文档、享受视频和音频等。
最近，我搭乘了一个试用这套被称为“Gogo”上网新系统的航班，抢先做了体验。我坐的是从旧金山到丹佛的一架小型喷气式飞机，在机舱里上网的感觉与在家中或在星巴克咖啡店(Starbucks)差不多。当飞机翱翔在崇山峻岭之、飞越美丽的国家公园的时候，我分别使用了戴尔(Dell)和苹果(Apple)笔记本电脑、黑莓手机(BlackBerry)、应用Windows Mobile系统的手机以及一部iPhone手机，尝试了各种最常见的上网应用。
我通过Microsoft Outlook和Apple Mail程序收发电子邮件，包括那些有大容量附件的邮件，并通过AOL Instant Messenger和Google Talk上网聊天。我使用了所有主流的互联网浏览器，打开几十个网站，在Hulu和YouTube网站上看视频片断。我从网上下载了照片、歌曲、PDF和Microsoft Office文档，并在iPhone、具备Wi-Fi上网功能的黑莓手机和Windows Mobile手机上尝试了所有的上网功能。
需要提醒的重要一点是：Gogo是个只传输数据的上网系统，不能使用它进行语音通话，并屏蔽掉所有通过互联网进行语音交谈的服务。
Gogo上网服务可能于2008年7月在美国三大航空公司的航班上推出。美国航空公司(American Airlines)往返于纽约和洛杉矶、旧金山和迈阿密的15架波音767飞机将第一批使用该系统。随后，Gogo将在维珍美国航空公司(Virgin America)的所有航班上使用，如果反响不错，可能增加到其它美国本土航线。该系统的供应商是位于丹佛的Aircell公司，其表示公司正与另外几家主要的美国航空公司商谈，可能在明年为它们提供Gogo服务。
Gogo的收费标准是：针对三小时以上的航班，每位使用上网服务的乘客统一收费12.95美元；针对三小时以下的短途航班，每位收费9.95美元。和其它上网服务一样，用户要先登录Gogo，并在一个专门网页上注册用户。不过，Aircell打算推出预先注册服务，这样乘客在航班上只需输入用户名和密码即可。用户不需要安装额外的软件、硬件和网线。
Gogo有一些上网功能是免费的，包括浏览美国航空公司(American Airlines)网站、Frommer旅游网上指南，以及华尔街日报(The Wall Street Journal)的一些文章。
Gogo不是第一个航班上网服务。几年前，德国汉莎航空公司(Lufthansa Airlines)推出一个由波音公司(Boeing)提供的卫星上网服务，主要针对横跨大洋的远程航班，但后来因故取消。
虽然谈不上快如闪电，但Gogo的上网速度确实很快，与手机宽带服务或稍慢的家庭DSL线路差不多。在我的测试航班上，下载速度从每秒266kb到1.4M不等，一般速度在500kb到600kb左右，而上传速度在250kb到300kb左右。我发现大多数上网任务，除观看视频外，感觉都很流畅，运行正常。
在一架大飞机上，如果同时上网的人数较多，网速可能会有所下降。但Aircell表示，公司拥有先进的技术，能够确保普通乘客在使用浏览网页和收发邮件等一般上网功能时，也能获得与我同样的体验。在测试过程中，有8台笔记本电脑和6部Wi-Fi智能手机在同时使用该系统，所有设备的上网速度都不错；唯一的例外是，当飞机经过Aircell地面控制塔的交界地带时，出现了几分钟的不畅通现象。
Aircell通过份布在北美各地的92座地面控制塔组成的网络为航班提供上网服务。它们其实就是手机地面站，能高速传输手机数字信号，唯一的区别是，Aircell控制塔的天线指向天空。飞机底部的一个接收器收到信号，然后通过Wi-Fi网络将信号传输到整个飞机内部。
Aircell公司表示，Gogo系统很安全，不会干扰飞机的正常操作。该技术已经通过政府的认可，而且飞行员可根据情况随时关闭系统。
Gogo也有一定的局限性。该服务的性能配置是：把浏览网页和收发邮件等低带宽任务列为优先级别，然后才考虑观看视频等高带宽任务。这意味著，视频播放可能有些慢，会时断时续。
而且，Gogo服务仅覆盖北美大陆，飞机在海洋和其它大陆的上空飞行时无法使用该服务，至少目前是这样。
但对于想在飞机上上网美国本土乘客而言，Gogo满足了他们的需求。
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