Our Inflight Wi-Fi 2010 Survey Results – Enterprise Mobility in the Air

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

Yesterday, we launched our inflight Wi-Fi service. In getting ready for this, we did a survey of over 2,400 mobile employees, from our customer base to get a better idea of recent trends for inflight internet connections.

Comments from users were overwhelming about the ability to do real-time collaboration. There was also resounding demand for inflight Wi-Fi with 63 percent saying it was critical for meeting business needs, especially on flights over one hour. A whopping 87 percent said they would use it if it was part of the iPass Mobile Network service.

In the blogosphere today, there were comments on whether this was taking away a worker’s ability to relax. We think that in reality, the mobile employee gets more choice. They can choose when they want to work (or play). For example, they can now choose a day flight, rather than a red-eye and get work done, as if in the office. They don’t have to work after hours or worry about being behind.

We will be diving into this more next month, when our quarterly Mobile Worker Report will have additional data on mobile employee productivity – what tools they use, balancing work/life and more. We will post the survey soon – check back next week.

Take a look at this survey now – nearly all respondents, 95 percent, said that Wi-Fi access would make them more productive. As one respondent said, “At times, I need to connect immediately with the corporate headquarters to convey latest information.” It’s nice to have that option.

Tags: inflight internet, wi-fi access