It was a presumptuous-turned-hilariously-ironic name, since hardly a soul did — connect, that is. Back in 2004, Connexion was test-run on a hand full of international carriers — problem was, it cost $20-$30 a flight, and not even Lufthansa’s well-heeled passengers would cough up that kind of coin. Two years later, it was deadzo.

But you can’t keep a good thing down; Internet-on-a-plane is back, baby. If your karma’s batting above .300, and the planets are aligned just right, you might find yourself aboard BetaBlue the next time you fly JetBlue — it’s the one and only plane in their fleet armed with WiFi (free, to boot).

First installed on BetaBlue back in December, the service is provided by LiveTV, the same folks who brought DIRECTV and XM radio to every JetBlue seat.

The caveat? The WiFi is rather limited: once you connect to the network with either your laptop or BlackBerry, you only have the option of a) email (Gmail, Yahoo, MS Exchange, MSN/Live/Hotmail and AOL accounts), b) instant messaging, or c) shopping (on Amazon.com) — basically the internets according to Grandma. No more, no less.

What you can’t do is actually surf the internet at 30,000 feet — that means no music downloads, no poker, no Drudge, no X-rated YouTubage. "We find that passengers really only want to send messages to friends, family members — they don’t need the full-blown internet," said JetBlue spokesperson Alison Eshelman. "We’re able to allow enough bandwidth for everyone to use, and we’re able to offer it for free."

BetaBlue’s WiFi connectivity, now six-months old, is still in its testing phase, and Eshelman admits JetBlue has no plans or timeline for rolling the service out fleet-wide (half the fun is that you never know whether you’ve booked BetaBlue until you’re on board, and it constantly changes routes). "We might continue to tweak it — we’ve already expanded access to more email servers — and so far over 100,000 emails have been sent," she said.

Come January 2009, Continental will offer the same LiveTV setup as JetBlue (both the WiFi and the DIRECTV) on its next-gen planes — and while they’ll charge economy classers $6 to watch the television, the WiFi will be complimentary.

Dwelling on what LiveTV’s service lacks is to neglect the bigger picture: the two airlines are opting for free internet in the sky over the alternative (R.I.P. Connexion).

Speaking of paying for it, American Airlines will become the first US carrier to test drive Aircell’s 2Mbps "Gogo" broadband service on their transcontinental 767-200s sometime this summer (though, no exact date has been set). Unlike the LiveTV service, this will be a fully surfable internet connection, but it’ll cost you — $12.95 for flights longer than three hours. "Pending successful trial" it’ll move onto shorter, domestic flights for $9.95.

"It’s really no different than going to a Starbucks and paying for the T-Mobile network," said AA spokesman Alan Phillips. "People are already conditioned to paying a small fee for wireless access."

Virgin America will install the same Gogo service on a few of their planes this fall (and on all of its 24-member fleet by Q1 2009), except you won’t need a laptop or PDA to use it. "People will be able to access the internet, email, IM accounts either from their seatback video touch-screen," said spokesperson Abby Lunardini. "We’ll be the only airline with both high-speed internet and live TV from your seat," said spokesperson Abby Lunardini."

Virgin has yet to name a price, but will "likely be similar to what you pay in an airport WiFi hotspot, so not free, but . . . a reasonable figure," according to Lunardini.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Delta says they’re "looking into [inflight] internet," but currently have nothing in the works.

So the question remains: With airline passengers already balking at baggage fees and fat taxes, can anything but free WiFi survive, no matter how cheap?