Continental Airlines this week announced an agreement with LiveTV (a wholly-owned subsidiary of JetBlue) to offer 36 channels of DIRECTV on its flights, along with onboard Wi-Fi for e-mail and instant messaging - but not Web browsing. It'll be limited to e-mail and SMS.

The service, which will begin deployment in January 2009, will be free to first-class customers - but economy customers will only be able to access the system if they first pay a $6.00 access fee.

"Continental will continue to install satellite television and Wi-Fi equipment on aircraft through 2009, and expects to have 225 aircraft able to provide the entertainment package by the end of 2010," write the WSJ's Michelle Donley and Jonathan Vuocolo.

In addition to JetBlue, other LiveTV customers include WestJet, Frontier Airlines, Virgin Blue and AirTran.

More here from SmarterTravel.com ... more here from Opodo ... more here from TechSpot ... more here from Electronista ... more here from BusinessWeek ... more here from Consumerist ... and the press release is here.