Community Service Project

February 25, 2009

EventPro Strategies is committed to giving back to our community! On Wednesday, February 25, 2009 we closed our Scottsdale office for the day and teamed up with Junior Achievement! EPS supported the 5^th and 6^th graders from Mountain Vista K-8 School by mentoring them to run “JA BizTown™” for a day!!

Junior Achievement is a not-for-profit organization. We believe every child deserves an education in economics and finances in order to inspire and prepare them for success in a global economy. Their goal is to help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. In learning these lessons, and putting them into quantifiable action, our students become intimately familiar with economics and finances. They become better prepared to assume their role in the practical world of work and responsible citizenship. JA of Arizona has been educating K-12 students about entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy since 1957. We have offices in Tempe and Tucson, and this year we will engage nearly 90,000 students in Junior Achievement of Arizona programs.

Below are some testimonials/letters we received from the Mountain Vista K-8 students, JA employees and EPS management:

“My reason for writing is to thank you. JA Biztown was like a real town. I worked as the CEO of US Airways and thank you for that opportunity. My time at JA Biztown was short, but I had fun while working. I ran to City Hall, Wells Fargo, Cox, UPS, State Farm, etc… Thank you for letting my class be a part of JA Biztown.” Miranda Brown - Mountain Vista Student, speaking about her JA experience

“We visited the JA Biztown and it was awesome. Thank you for helping us in the newspaper. We were lost when we first got there, but you taught us how to do our jobs and encouraged us to do our work, and how to become a leader. We all got through the rush hour when we were doing our jobs, and you were not only volunteers but our friends. Thank you for this great experience! Your Newspaper CEO and friend.” Kenneth Riceneio- Mountain Vista Student, speaking about his JA experience

“Our school just visited JA Biztown. I really liked the volunteers who taught me a lot. Thank you for your time and I hope that I can come back again. I hope that you are there when I come back!” Sara Weathers - Mountain Vista Student, speaking about her JA experience

“Through this successful event, EventPro Strategies continues its commitment towards improving the community. The day was filled with learning opportunities for all involved and allow our staff to make a difference in the lives of many students. We look forward to our next Biz Town event.” Eric Kaufman – Chief Operating Officer, EventPro Strategies

“I can’t even tell you how amazing it was to have EPS here last week! Yes it’s true the school had some challenges but your team handled everything with understanding and professionalism. I’ll be sure to send over the letters from students when they arrive. Thanks again, from the bottom of my heart, for making all this happen for our kids. It makes a huge difference.” Lisa Shevy - Senior Director Development, Junior Achievement^® of Arizona

The EventPro Strategies team was proud to be part of Junior Achievement and mentor the Mountain Vista K-8 School 5^th and 6^th graders! This event inspired a number of our employees to volunteer for additional Junior Achievement events (including teaching in the classroom). We look forward to helping our Community and Junior Achievement again in 2010!

EVENTPRO STRATEGIES Food Drive Project.

October-November 2008

EventPro Strategies conducted a Thanksgiving food drive for St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance, the world's first food bank. St. Mary's is a non-sectarian, nonprofit organization that alleviates hunger by efficiently gathering and distributing food to sites that serve the hungry. Serving 13 of Arizona's 15 counties, the organization is committed to local volunteerism, building community relationships and improving the quality of life for Arizonians in need.

Senior citizens and families with children comprise the majority of the clients served by the Food Bank. By partnering with 534 Arizona agencies, such as EventPro Strategies, the Food Bank is able to distribute food to 700 sites.

EPS donated enough food to feed 259,761 meals to needy families in November! We received a Certificate of Appreciation from Monique Torres, Food Drive Coordinator and Terry Shannon, CEO of St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance. The EPS team was proud to step up and help our Arizona community!

Entire "Early Show" To Be Done From Plane

Dave Price, left, and Virgin America CEO Sir Richard Branson during the first-ever live weathercasts from a plane, on The Early Show Thursday (CBS)

A Broadcasting First; Will Beam Live Next Month From Virgin America Craft, Dave Price Says During 1st Weathercasts From Plane

NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2009

(CBS) During a broadcasting first, Dave Price announced an even bigger one.

The Early Show weather anchor and features reporter told viewers during the first live weathercasts from a plane Thursday that those were only a warm-up act: Next month, an entire Early Show will be done from up above!

Price was some 33,000 feet in the air when he made the announcement, from a Virgin America A-319.

With him was Virgin America CEO Sir Richard Branson.

Where the plane will be headed next month remains a mystery.

What isn't a mystery is some of the content of the "Early Over America" show: a concert and fashion show, just for starters.

"This brings a whole new meaning to being on the road," Price observed, "because we're actually gonna be above it!"

It's all made possible by advances in Wi-Fi technology, cell phone service and broadband.

There are more than 100,000 cell phone towers across the United States, Price explained from the air Thursday, sending their signals down to cell phone users on the ground. But now, with the latest technology, that signal is being beamed up, not to people at slow speeds, but people in planes flying more than 500 miles-an-hour. It's Wi-Fi and broadband technology on the user end that makes it do-able, as well as the ability to hand off from tower to tower at high speeds.

Virgin America uses Aircell's Gogo in-flight Internet service.

Branson also described his carriers new "RED" entertainment offering, which enables passengers to control what they watch, when and what they want to eat or drink, and what they want to listen to, all via touch-screen or remote control.

Branson told Price the "only way to get over recession is to expand out of recession, put on more routes ... and then make sure that you add all the bells and whistles. Next month, on every single Virgin America plane, you'll be able to get the Internet on the plane, use the Internet the whole journey. And that's how we can actually broadcast live back to a television show today!"

Aircell says Gogo "turns an airplane into a Wi-Fi hotspot, enabling access to the Web, personal IM, e-mail accounts, and VPN access to corporate e-mail, networks and more. ... Users can simply turn on their Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, open their browsers ... and begin surfing. ... The service is $12.95 on flights over three hours and $9.95 on shorter flights."

Aircell CEO Jack Blumentein told Price Wi-Fio "has been used in aviaiton for many, may years and is absolutely safe. (It) doesn't interfere with aircraft operation. ... You can't use your cell phone to talk (from the plane) and you can't use cell phone frequencies. But you can use Wi-Fi and our link to the ground."

Delta Airlines offers Gogo on a limited number of flights and plans to expand it, and United Airlines says it will roll out Gogo in the second half of this year.

Among RED's features, according to Virgin America:

# More than 25 on-demand movies and 18 channels of live TV

# Kids' entertainment section with parental controls

# 3,000 MP3 library and ability to create own play list

# Interactive Google Maps, so you can track your journey at eight levels of zoom

# On-board, seat-to-seat chat messaging

# World's first on-demand food and drink ordering system at every seatback

The feet on the street are now your eyes and ears as well.

When Continental Airlines talks to business fliers at events these days, it’s now through college-educated field staffers. Before Starbucks launched a fleet of street teams last month for its new Chantico beverage, crew members spent three days inside its stores. Apple Computer teaches trade show reps how to operate Macs, whether they’ll use them during the show or not. And if on-premise crews don’t drink Ketel One vodka, they can’t work for Ketel One.

If the growing number of marketers getting more involved in the selection, training, and execution of their event staffs is any indication, companies are indeed beginning to take their brand ambassadors more seriously. “First impressions are lasting impressions,” says Marcia Bauman, president of Framingham, MA-based staffing company The Bauman Group.

Some say the push to foster a higher-quality conversation with the target is driving the increased attention to staffing. “We can no longer successfully deliver our message through an $8-an-hour college student,” says Wes Reese, Continental’s director of sports marketing. “A quality interaction requires a quality interactor.”

Others argue that it’s a matter of brands protecting their event-marketing investments. “As event spends grow, involvement with the customer grows,” says Dennis Murray, president of Seattle-based agency Passage Events. “As involvement increases, marketers are realizing they have to ensure they are stepping up their brand ambassadors.”

Whatever the reason, some say the increased scrutiny is long overdue. “The importance of the brand ambassador isn’t growing,” says Brad Wirz, senior vp-experiential marketing with New York City-based event shop Euro RSCG. “Marketers are simply now realizing the importance.”

Quality Quotient

Brand marketers who are upgrading the quality of field staffs are replacing some of the typical eye candy with personable people who can “actually have a conversation,” says Shelly Justice, president of Atlanta-based Convention Models & Talent.

Not only are events now used to push a message in addition to a product, but the products associated with the messages are more sophisticated. When AOL launched 9.0 Optimized, they needed Web-savvy staffers who could talk up the service, Web surfing, and answer not only Internet questions (does it have a pop-up blocker?) but computer questions as well (will this run on XP?).

“It’s about more than a pretty face these days,” says Tim Ridgeway, a director of business development at Pepsi-Cola Co., who handles many of the soda giant’s trade show programs. “At the end of the day, we want people to walk away not knowing whether they just interacted with a PepsiCo employee or a contract worker.”

On street campaigns and mobile tours, trade shows and grassroots fan fests, and everything in between, field staffers have grown up. They are more intelligent—because staffing agencies are aggressively screening the piles of applicants who come in each week—more personable, and able to do more. “Staffers must now be able to understand our company and our phones, explain how to use picture messaging, and help with logistics,” says Lucie Pathmann, Alltel’s director of sponsorships and publicity. “They cannot be shy, and they have to be at ease going into a crowd and talking us up.”

Marketers in general are getting “more refined and specific about who represents them,” says Larry Hess, president of Redondo Beach, CA-based staffing agency Encore Nationwide. “They are putting less pressure on price and more pressure on having the right people.”

The reasoning? The more relevant a brand ambassador is to the target audience, the more authentic the interaction will be. The Home Depot’s credit card acquisition teams in San Francisco are primarily Asian; in Miami, they’re mostly Hispanic. Samplers on SoBe’s Love Bus don’t just look like the target—with tattoos, earrings in places you don’t tell gramma about, and iPods. “They are the target,” says Verna Cooper, director of marketing with St. Louis staffing house Market Partners.

Staff requests are getting more particular by the day as brands look to create armies of staffers their targets can’t help but engage. “One minute we can be sourcing motorcycle-licensed hotties for a p.r. event in New York City, the next we’re [sending] half-naked street teams of 20 male actors sporting body paint into several markets, and the next we’re finding females within a two-inch height requirement,” says Jessica Browder-Stackpoole, president of EventPro Strategies, a Scottsdale, AZ-based staffing agency. “Every single day is different.”

In addition to getting more specific about who their agencies hire, marketers are getting more involved in the actual selection process. Those who used to simply flip through headshots now are getting applicants in the door. When Snapple Beverage Group’s Nantucket Nectars was planning a pair of mobile tours, Stamford, CT-based J. Brown Events came up with the list of staffing contenders. “I then went myself to meet with the proposed hires,” says Nantucket director of marketing Jim Crook. “Only when I was satisfied with them were they accepted as brand ambassadors.”

And just as marketers are getting more involved with their event crews, crews are being asked to get more involved with the marketers. Brand ambassadors once signed out after they finished working an event; now, they’re being asked to provide insight about the programs they’re conducting. After hundreds or thousands of conversations at an event, they’re the perfect people to ask about whether the target is receptive to the message, what’s working, and what’s not. “The feedback from these people may be more valuable than anything else they do,” says Reese. “It’s that good.”

Carolyn Pollock, eBay’s senior manager of consumer marketing, agrees. “It gives us an interesting perspective because the staffers are not as close to the brand,” she says. “These brand ambassadors work for different companies all the time. They usually have an opinion worth listening to.”

Naturally, higher quality ambassadors cost more. Pay ranges for general staffers are $17 to $25 per hour, and $30 to $45 per for regional managers and touring crews, but many say it’s worth it. “We’ll pay more for someone who can have an intelligent conversation,” says Michael Hammer, senior manager in charge of Aquafina at Pepsi.

One other tidbit: The event staff has traditionally been comprised mostly of women, but it’s getting more male. Companies are making more of an effort to better match the target base’s gender split. (And quite honestly, as event programs become more labor-intensive the guys are typically more willing to sign on for heavy lifting during setup and breakdown.)

Ready for Action

A deeper involvement on the front lines requires more upfront preparation for field crews. Brand managers, as a result, are slowly beginning to embrace more staff training.

Some are treating event staffers as they would corporate employees, putting crews through immersion training to equip them with not only corporate and product information, but also a taste of the brand and corporate culture. Starbucks’ Chantico crews spent three days in stores watching customers, learning the menus, and helping baristas. “If the customer encounters our street team at an event, that conversation has to be consistent with what goes on in our stores,” says Brad Davis, the company’s vp-advertising and promotions. “We want our temporary staffers to be as knowledgeable as our employees.”

Other companies make training more social than educational, taking crews out for team dinners and playing brand games after dessert. On the final night of their seven-day training at Lego’s headquarters, for instance, mobile crews head over to event manager Vince Rubino’s house for a barbecue. In cases when bringing the staff to corporate isn’t an option, companies are bringing the training to the staff. Cadillac, for example, flew product specialists out to train field staffers in each market during its recent STS tour.

But much of today’s staff training is still not face to face. Phone training is getting somewhat better, with companies investing in multiple tele-education sessions, instead of just one. The Hain-Celestial Group’s Terra Chips, for example, used a combination of phone and email training to prep street teams for a 16-market tour rolling out now. “Not every event program requires immersion training,” reasons Marc Bessinger, president of New York City-based field shop YES, Inc.

Others are leaning on technology to help enhance and streamline training. Web-based programs can take users through a campaign and then administer a test they must pass to get hired. Famous Footwear recently mailed CD-ROM training kits to field staffers working a grand opening tour. The discs included instructions for setting up stores and talking to shoppers, then took recipients through a 75-question quiz. “We looked at the scores to determine who was ready for the program and who needed a follow-up phone call with more training,” says Heather Gaecke, director of QuickStrike, the New Berlin, WI staffing unit of Omnicom’s Radiate Group.

But training still has a long way to go, according to staffing companies. The process varies by brand, by program, by budget, and by the amount of time available. “It’s still the most overlooked piece of staffing. Nobody is putting a line item in the budget for training,” says Hess. “Many clients are content with quick phone training or a 15-minute on-site training session. They shouldn’t be.”

Mixed Bag

As temporary brand ambassadors have found more permanent assignments, more marketers are sending corporate employees to events as volunteer staffers. Crook says Nantucket Nectars will have employees, agency staff, and distributors’ staff work events this year. “We want to see which delivers the most in the end.”

And after years of being asked, marketers are finally starting to get out of the office and visit their events and staffs in person. In addition to scheduled, announced stops, they’re mystery shopping their own events in an effort to get unvarnished pictures of their brand presence.

Staffing companies have been quick to capitalize on the surge in business. Most have upgraded their databases and are screening more candidates. The smarter ones are investing in additional back-end systems and devising electronic reporting offerings, ROI tracking, and e-communications. The next trend? Look for field agencies to introduce Web-based sourcing software that will allow clients to request, screen, and book their staff at the click of a button. Once those systems are up and running, the evolution of today’s event staffer will march on. “As event marketing grows, marketers will look for more ways to get more our of their brand ambassadors,” says Dominique Bonavita, manager of strategic alliances and promotions at Royal Caribbean.

JESSICA BROWDER-STACKPOOLE of EventPro Strategies honored in the 2009 Enterprising Women of the Year Award by Enterprise Women Magazine.. 

        Enterprising Women has named the 2009 honorees for the Enterprising Women of the Year Award.  Winners and finalists will be recognized at a gala dinner held in their honor during the 7th Annual Enterprising Women of the Year Awards Celebration, March 11-13, 2009 at Disney's Yacht Club Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL.  

       

        Nominations for the award poured in throughout October and November and the magazine's editorial team narrowed the field to a group of semi-finalists. A committee made up of members of the magazine's prestigious National Advisory Board conducted telephone interviews with candidates in order to finalize the selection of winners and finalists. 

       

        The caliber of honorees for the Enterprising Women of the Year Award is amazing. These women are all leading fast-growth businesses, while assuming leadership roles in their communities, and mentoring other women in business.  We are so proud of each and every one of them," Monica Smiley, Publisher/CEO of Enterprising Women, said.  

       The celebration that has been planned to shine a spotlight on the accomplishments of these honorees includes a Hall of Fame induction luncheon, gala awards dinners, procurement breakfast co-hosted by the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), an opening reception co-hosted by the Women Presidents' Organization (WPO), workshops co-sponsored by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), the Women Presidents' Organization, and other partner organizations, a Disney Institute program, a golf clinic lead by LPGA pro golfer Dana Rader, and wine tasting featuring women-owned wineries from North America and Australia.  

 

Winners of the Enterprising Women of the Year Award include: 

  

OVER $25 MILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUES: 

  

·  Carolyn T. Doerle of Doerle Food Service, LLC, Broussard, LA 

·  Elise Hernandez of Ideal System Solutions, Inc., Maple Grove, MN 

·  Deborah Jallad of Accredited Surety & Casualty Company, Orlando, FL 

·  Amy Langer of SALO, LLC, Minneapolis, MN 

·  Tanya C. Matthews of TMG Construction Corporation, Purcellville, VA 

·  Cynthia J. Pasky of Strategic Staffing Solutions, Detroit, MI 

·  Sue Pisaturo of Small World Vacations, Washington Township, NJ 

·  Sonu Ratra of Akraya Inc., Sunnyvale, CA 

  

OVER $10 MILLION & UP TO $ 25 MILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUES: 

  

·  Terri S. Alpert of Uno Alla Volta LLC, North Branford, CT 

·  Carol Craig of Craig Technologies, Cape Canaveral ,FL 

·  Hannah Kain of ALOM, Fremont, CA 

·  Colleen Kramer of Evergreen Supply Company,  Chicago, IL 

·  Julie Levi of Progressive Promotions, Inc., Englewood, NJ 

·  LindaMoraski of PeopleSERVE, Inc., Chestnut Hill, MA

·  Anne D. Shybunko-Moore of GSE Dynamics Inc., Hauppauge, NY 

 

 OVER $ 5 MILLION & UP TO $ 10 MILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUES: 

  

·  Nancy Freeman Balkcom of MySupplies, Atlanta, GA 

·  Jessica Browder-Stackpoole of EventPro Strategies, Inc., Tempe, AZ 

·  Leah Brown of Aten Solutions, Inc., Cary, NC 

·  Annie Danielson of Danielson Designs, Trinidad, CO 

·  Angela Hedges Hendricks of Bentley Hudges Travel Service Inc.,  

   Oklahoma City, OK 

·  Lou Jurkowski of BJAC, pa, Raleigh, NC 

·  Darlene M. Miller of Permac Industries, Burnsville, MN 

·  Lynn Paige of PerfectPower, Inc., Phoenix, AZ 

·  Bridget Soyka Smith of Soyka Smith Design Studios, Upper Montclair, NJ 

·  Paula Turner of Lexair Electronics Sales Corporation, Greensboro, NC 

  

OVER $ 1 MILLION & UP TO $ 5 MILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUES: 

  

·  Marri Aviza of Rumors Salon and Spa, Latham, NY 

·  Tina Teree Baker of Cadence Group, Atlanta, GA 

·  JenniferBisceglie of InTEROS Solutions, McLean, VA 

·  J. Isabel Chancellor of IngenuitE, Inc., Oklahoma City, OK 

·  Joan Killian Gallagher of Warden-Brooks, Ltd., New Canaan, CT 

·  Jena Gardner of JG Black Book of Travel, New York, NY 

·  Debbi Somers of Somers Furniture Inc., Las Vegas, NV 

·  Terri Sullivan of Meridian Imaging Solutions, Alexandria, VA 

·  Mary Wu of Wu Consulting LLC, Washington, DC 

  

  UP TO $ 1 MILLION IN ANNUAL REVENUES:  

  

·  MaryArdapple Dierker of Apple's Bakery, Inc., Peoria, IL 

·  Ann Kayman of New York Grant Company, New York, NY 

·  GenmaStringer Holmes of Holmes Pest Control, Hermitage, TN 

·  Patricia Massey of Myca Multimedia & Training Solutions, Cincinnati, OH 

·  Laura Lee Williams of Laura Lee Designs, Inc., McLean, VA 

  

FINALISTS FOR THE 2009 ENTERPRISING WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARD INCLUDE: 

  

·  Amberly Allen of Direct Innovations, LLC, Bellaire, TX 

·   Dale Bare of Bare International, Inc., Fairfax, VA 

·  Gloria J. Carter-Hicks of Hicks-Carter-Hicks, LLC, St. Louis, MO 

·  Tricia Dempsey of Agile Resources, Inc., Cumming, GA 

·  Helen Ficalora of Helen Ficalora, New York, NY 

·  Linda Maslow of The Maslow Media Group, Washington, DC 

·  Stella M. Miller of Stella May Contracting, Inc., Edgewood, MD 

·  Carrie Mitchell of ASAP Office Supply, Raleigh, NC 

·  Natalie Perkins of Clean Design, Research Triangle Park, NC 

·  Jill Vitiello of Vitiello Communications Group, LLC, East Brunswick, NJ 

·  Mindy T. Withrow of CSS Distribution Group, Inc., Louisville, KY 

Wi-Fi taking off on Virgin

Airline gets passengers online

by Marc Graser

From VARIETY Magazine.

In-flight entertainment's about to take off in a new direction.

Virgin America this week flipped the switch on a Wi-Fi service it will offer on all its planes by the middle of next year, letting passengers surf the Internet, email and send instant messages using a laptop computer or mobile device such as an iPhone or BlackBerry. Voice calls are not permitted.

Other airlines, including American and Delta, plan to roll out full Internet access on their planes next year, while JetBlue, Southwest and Alaska Airlines are testing similar technology.

Offering will instantly change the lives of business travelers, eliminating the brief respite they've had from their gadgets while on planes.

The Wi-Fi in the sky is also expected to have several major implications for Hollywood as well.

Airline passengers could become a greater source of revenue for operators of entertainment websites, with travelers logging onto those sites to watch a movie, TV show or Web series; download music; or play a game.

An uptick in traffic from bored fliers will enable those sites to collect more coin from advertisers.

Sites like YouTube are counting on it, with the company having paired up with Virgin America to promote the launch of the Wi-Fi service over the weekend during its YouTube Live event in San Francisco.

Chris Di Cesare, YouTube's head of marketing, called the launch of Wi-Fi at 35,000 feet "game-changing for the YouTube community," giving video creators access to a captive audience.

Yet Wi-Fi could impact the studios' bottom lines in a negative way.

If enough travelers pay the $10-$13 fee (depending on the length of the flight) to log online, they may be less likely to shell out the $2-$8 to watch a TV show or movie from a seatback or ceiling-mounted screen.

And with passengers able to view entertainment online, airlines don't necessarily have to buy movies and TV shows anymore. They can just collect the connectivity fee charged to give passengers access to the Web and allow them to find whatever they want to entertain themselves.

For example, Wi-Fi would suddenly enable an airline like Southwest, which never offered entertainment aboard its planes, to suddenly have an inflight entertainment system. And US Airways, which eliminated its onboard entertainment this fall due to cutbacks, will have it back again, should it deploy Wi-Fi.

So the advent of Wi-Fi service could reduce the $240 million that studios earn from film and TV sales to airlines each year.

But that kind of negative financial impact won't be felt for some time.

On a recent flight over San Francisco, emailing, instant messaging and visiting websites was a quick and simple process using Virgin America's system, operated by Gogo and Aircell.

Yet watching any kind of TV show or movie on Hulu.com or trailer on QuickTime brought back unwelcome memories of frustratingly jittery video streams from nearly a decade ago that paused more often than played.

The reason is bandwidth. Video quality varies depending on how many passengers are logged onto the Wi-Fi service and gives preference to those requiring less bandwidth for sending emails or surfing sites.

Thus airlines won't turn off their seatback screens anytime soon.

Wi-Fi is being sold as a convenience mostly for business travelers, and airlines like Virgin America will continue to use their in-flight entertainment systems to stand out from their rivals.

"Business travelers are certainly a key customer, especially given that we already offer power outlets at every seat," said Virgin America spokeswoman Abby Lunardini. "However, we really have a good mix of business and leisure travel and hope that Wi-Fi access will also be a draw for leisure travelers who may want to rent a car, Google map or just generally surf the Web en route to their destination."

Besides, relying solely on Wi-Fi as an entertainment provider will cost the airlines too much in lost revenue.

While airlines are expected to earn as much as $936 million from Wi-Fi services in 2012, according to research firm MultiMedia Intelligence, they'll also be able to generate as much as $913 million from in-flight video broadcasts.

In-flight Net access takes off on Virgin America

By Roger Yu, USA TODAY

PHOTO: Passenger Emmaline Allwood learns about Aircell's in-flight broadband service Gogo from Jared Karns in JFK Airport's American Airlines terminal.

Monday, Virgin America plans to become the latest airline to offer in-flight Wi-Fi Internet, a service with a problematic past that still promises far-ranging flexibility in entertainment.

The San Francisco-based carrier has scheduled the service for one Airbus A320 aircraft, joining American Airlines as the only carriers in the world to offer full Internet access.

Dubbed Gogo, the service lets passengers browse the Web, use e-mail and instant messaging, download video and connect to secure networks through three wireless access points on the plane. Voice calls over the Internet are not allowed. The cost is $9.95 to $12.95 a flight, depending on route length.

If Virgin America's test flight is deemed successful after about a week of flying, the airline will expand the service to 24 other planes in its fleet by mid-2009.

With two carriers offering the service commercially, in-flight Internet is making a serious comeback after a two-year period of dormancy.

The previous generation of in-flight Wi-Fi, operated by Connexion by Boeing, was shut off at the end of 2006. Its satellite-based system proved to be too expensive for domestic carriers, and Connexion couldn't find enough passenger demand for the $30-a-flight service.

Still, customers and airlines' interest in affordable in-flight Wi-Fi persisted, leading to several technology companies vying for the business. Working with its entertainment subsidiary, LiveTV, JetBlue introduced a text message/e-mail service last year on one aircraft as a trial.

In June, Chicago-based Aircell began offering its Gogo Internet service on 15 of American Airlines' Boeing 767 aircraft. LiveTV and Aircell rely on existing cell towers to beam transmissions. While this "air-to-ground" technology is less expensive for airlines to install, it limits access to flying over land.

"The speed was comparable to my home DSL," says frequent traveler David Ralph, music director of Webster Hall in New York who recently tried American's Internet.

"You can put a little instant-messaging icon that says you're (flying). My friend in Belgrade got back to me and thought it was amazing. It's definitely a step in the right direction."

Among other carriers that have revealed their Wi-Fi plans:

•Air Canada says it will offer Gogo starting in spring on several Airbus A319s that fly to the USA, with plans to expand it to the rest of the fleet later. Aircell plans to build cell towers in Canada so that Canadian airlines will be able to provide Wi-Fi on domestic flights.

•Alaska Airlines plans to test a satellite-based system on a Boeing 737 plane in 2009. Operated by California-based Row 44, the carrier plans to expand it to the rest of its fleet if the test is successful. The airline prefers a satellite system because many of its flights fly over water.

•Southwest Airlines has also signed with Row 44 and will test it in four aircraft early next year, spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger says.

•Delta spokeswoman Betsy Talton says Delta will introduce GoGo in two aircraft by the end of the year. The airline expects to have more than 330 aircraft complete by summer 2009. It plans to extend it to its Northwest subsidiary, as well.

•Continental Airlines plans to introduce an e-mail and instant-messaging service operated by LiveTV in the summer.

US Airways and United say they're evaluating various vendors and didn't reveal more details.