After clicking a few articles deep, it appears this is communicating with a geo-synchronous satellite and with latency of roughly 750ms. Plenty of bandwidth, and it should in theory work in North and South America.
Figuring out how to deal with the 750ms ping latency was a pain at first. Held our breath when the ViaSat Satellite launched. The rockets that were launched right before that mission didn't meet with much success.
Funny, my surprise is in the opposite direction. Aviation moves at a glacial pace, and the speed with which in-flight internet access has been popping up is pretty shocking. Within the past couple of years, my experience has been that it's much more likely to have internet access on a US domestic flight than not.
On the flipside, a lot of Air Canada planes have free individual media entertainment systems and power outlets while most of the American flights I've taken don't have outlets or entertainment that doesn't require a credit card.
Southwest has internet that costs, I think $8-9, per day per device for internet, but TV is free. They also have on-demand, but that costs extra too. No outlets yet, though.
Given the choice, I prefer outlets over internet on flights, largely because I can always code or play computer games on a laptop without the internet and not worry about my computer shutting down.
Delta has different things on different flights almost entirely at random. I think they have internet on basically every flight ($8, huge scam IMO but that's where internet for planes is right now), free TV on like...20-30% of flights maybe?
It may not be worth the investment yet. Most people can go a few hours without internet, but that is quickly changing. Usually if I'm on the plane, I prepare myself with offline documentation and code to write or movies.
Not portable though. I live and work on the road from an Airstream using mobile connection. An easy to configure portable satellite setup is my dream. There are a few out there but at crazy prices.
Someone should look into providing head mounted display (think Oculus Rift) devices for passengers on Aircraft - for a fee of course. I'd love to play a flight sim while flying :P
