I’m on Virgin America somewhere over the Midwest as I type, about an hour out of Washington's Dulles airport. It's the first time I’ve ever blogged or even surfed the Internet from the sky.

Internet access is certainly keeping me entertained as I fly -- and I imagine it would be a great distractor for children and teens. As a Netflix subscriber, I also have free streaming access to thousands of movies and TV shows while in the air. On this six hour flight, I could stream three movies before reaching San Francisco.

The 1.5 Mbps download speed is better than many DSL services. It's fast enough for those Netflix movies and I even tried a phone call with Skype -- before learning that voice calls are not allowed by the FCC.  (That's a good thing because phone calls would be annoying for fellow passengers.)  Instant messaging, email, Twitter, Facebook and all other Web sites, of course, work just fine.

The cost is $9.95 for the entire flight and is offered by GoGo. It's also available on  American flights between New York and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami.