I use to travel every week and one of the comfort that I would like to have, in-flight, is navigating internet while navigating in the air. Traveling requires being in-flight for many hours. During that time, you can read magazines or check you off-line email.
Using in-flight time to browse internet would give me enough time for research with no interruptions, since you must have you cellular phones and pagers off.
I found an article in USToday that tell us that we have to wait more but problably no too much, even though it is not clear who is going to finally provide this service.
The article, called Providing in-flight Wi-Fi still a struggle, says that Boeing may sell or shutdown its Conexion division, the only company offering in-flight Wi-Fi. There are currently ten foreign carriers buying the service, other than US airlines. Also, they mention that Verizon Airfone has been working with United Airlines to offer a competing service but they have cancelled the project. However, there is a company that might introduce a Wi-Fi system for domestic airlines at low prices similar to Starbucks.
As the article mention "US domestic travelers are still at least a year from surfing the web at 35,000 feet". It is not clear when we are going to have this service in United States but it is something that we, travelers, are still waiting for.
If you think about doing business, this is also a good opportunity to sell more stuff, when it comes up.