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In-Flight Web Access Coming Soon?
tewl wrote to us with news that in-flight Internet and e-mail may soon be available on commercial airline flights, but that U.S. airlines are still wary of it. It sounds pretty interesting, but it also sounds like the earliest it's going to roll out is next year. Honestly, I'd like them to work on power adaptors first, but, hey.
But you'll have to rent the keyboard and mouse, just like a movie headset (complete with airline-proprietary connector. . .). And good luck getting ANYTHING done in cattle, er, coach class. . .there just isn't room, even if they had little chiclet keyboards and touchpad mice.
A couple of hundred pax on a jetliner, figure at most half will actually go online, and most will accept modem speeds. So figure an on-board proxy server feeding 1-2 DirectPC-type satellite links, with a satellite uplink as well. . .
And three guesses as to the likely browser and OS of the inflight system. Especially since Boeing is the OTHER big outfit in the Seattle area. . .
Hi, Currently Delta, United, SAS, SwissAir and many more quality airlines offer EMPOWER in the seat (business class). I understood that Delta would be the first in the world with this. You would get some laptop-adapter for it, so no crappy phone lines. The funny thing is also that lounges and gates would also be equipped with similar technologies. So al together this is not too bad. The only thing that is left to worry is the price of it all.... Cheers, Brenno.
Cheers, Brenno de Winter.
I agree completely with you in terms of the comfort. Especially because my company never decides to send me on trips at the last second and then still looks for rock bottom prices. The record all time worst itinerary: 20 hours in the air travel system to get from Manchester to Sacramento, when I could have flown direct Boston to San Francisco.
And, I travel a lot.
But -- I don't think that trying to squeeze a laptop into the mix really helps. I'd rather have a book, or just to sit and daydream.
Frankly, in terms of innovations, I'd take an airline that gave me two inches more width or depth over Internet access any day.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There shouldn't be a problem with cell-phone access from the trains, esp. with the digital phones, you get more problems from the fact the train is a metal cage and blocking signal.
Do you realise just how many of the cell-phone companies actually use Amtrak property to house their antennas, so most of the time your phone is close to an antenna.
And on the East Coast all of the main fiber lines run along the railroad, simplifies all the real estate issues, just one entity to deal with.
What would be nice would be to convince them to run 802.11 along the corridor.
Mike
Well, the previous poster that described what's actually being planned pretty much turned me off it. Sounds more like eye candy to keep passengers happy, with enough live content to give the corporate types something to play with.
..
What's wrong with having one big broadband wireless connection to the ground, with a router and DHCP server on the plane feeding a gigabit LAN? Maybe the connection speed to the ground would suffer, but enough people use cable and DSL now that they're used to sharing the pipe, and there are ways to make sure the bandwidth is shared fairly.
If the DHCP server does DNS as well, you could map an onboard web server that has live updated flight info, position maps, interesting things to see out the window (does anyone look out the window anymore?) and even online flight safety pages. *That* would work. The proposal I saw just now is more a way to get advertisements onto our screens than anything else
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
Damn right CRTs are a safety issue. Being 6'5", those things can be deadly.
I think you're going to have serious limitations on web connectivity with Tenzing's scheme. A Major Application of in-flight web access is travel scheduling, and there is no way you will be able to upload the entire search space of travel information/connections etc. A small subset of the search space, no doubt culled from your content-providers, will not be useful. When people make changes to their travel itinerary, they need access to *all* the possible permutations of schedules/airlines/hotels/fares etc., unless I am missing something I just don't see how you will be able to povide that kind of functionality. And if you are offerring web access without a real-time travel-planning capability, then you'll lose a major chunk of the functionality and subsequent revenue.
If I am sitting in flight and I suddenly need to change my itinerary, I am not gonna be happy if the only travel website I can reach is MSN Expedia. And give me a break - will these content-providers have any reason to give me the full selection of discount fares that I can select from? More likely I will get less choice and higher prices than a land-based travel planner. On a plane, you're the ultimate Captive Audience.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
If you can relax in a coach class seat, then you're a lot smaller than I am (and I consider myself to be a pretty "average"-sized guy). Sleep on a plane has never been really possible for me under normal circumstances.
When I'm on a long plane flight, I'm DESPERATE to find something else to do besides think about how cramped I am. Books, my laptop, cheesy portable arcade games - if I don't have them, then I really AM wiped out when I reach my destination!
Actually, I got the info from a friend who was involved with the study (they work at the NTSB), when I asked about the safety record of the 747 because of what happened with Flight800.
-- toolie
Good point about the split bus, those gensets would fight terribly. Constant Speed Drive? Revolting! Unless it's hydrodynamic, there are too many things to break.
A direct connection to the turbine would be horribly complex. A pnematic or hydrolic connection is simpler...
But IIRC the APU on the B737 is a tiny thing, not like the engine on the B727. How can it produce enough compressed air to start the big boys? You'd have to run a 2" line clear to the expanders, and use it as a storage vessel.
Also whilst the B727 has everything in one place (at the back) a B737 has an engine on each wing and the APU in the tail.
%finger seata3.flight437f.canadianairlines.ca
Someone go do this. You'll make a ton of money.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Just depends on what you like to do for fun - I'm pretty consistent about zoning out when I'm in front of a computer screen (much to the irritation of my family). Time goes pretty fast for me when I'm doing it though.
What I _really_ fantasize about is having a wearable virtual reality setup - plane? I'm on a plane? oh yeah, I forgot :)
I already have to deal with the inane questions from the guy sitting next to me. All I need is for the whole freaking plane to try and have a conversation with me.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
I was right there with you ... until you mentioned the lack-of-crowds.
I too am about 6'4, and I take Amtrak to Virginia all the time to visit my girlfriend.
And the seats are _truly_ lovely (especially compared to airline travel!) and it's reasonably quick.
But the Philly-to-DC-and-parts-south run is usually ALWAYS packed! On a typical day, it's SRO until at LEAST Wilmington, if not BWI!
But that's a quibble. I concur otherwhise most wholeheartedly - Amtrak is a pretty nice way to travel.
Redhawk
No, I'm pretty sure that power isn't a big issue. If it were, they would replace the CRTs with LCDs for showing the in-flight entertainment (true, newer planes use LCDs, but not because of the power drain).
Anyway, it wouldn't be a safety issue--you can bet that it would be set up so that if power runs low, non-essential systems go first. You might not like having your laptop considered non-essential, but that's life.
The DC3 (operator US Airways) I flew to Atlanta on in August allowed "Data/Email calls" for $1.99/min. It was too expensive to play with, but there.
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
But then I'll try to post, and then...
:)
Well, then I'll ask the stewardess for a stiff drink.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It sounds like someone in management said "Make it happen!" This means the implementation will be haphazardly thrown together. We already have problems with Laptops and portable radios interfering with the radio navigation used by airplanes. I can imagine the new problems this may cause.
I can't wait to see the headlines:
Hackers Take Control of Airplane While in Flight
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
When I fly (which granted, is not very often), I like being able to get away from technology. I don't want to have Mr. Stock Trader on my left and Mr. IRC Junkie on my right while I'm trying to get some sleep on an aeroplane. National Public Radio had a commentary about this a month ago or so, where this woman didn't like this and cell phone usage becoming possible on the planes, because of the noise, stupid people who won't get off the fscking phone when they think that they can make a buck off of what they're doing, and the idiot on the aisle seat who won't put the @#%^ laptop away and tray table up so she could get up to get to the lavoratory. I LIKE getting away from electronics from time to time.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Is it really necessary that my neighborly seat neighbor is hot synching his palm while spilling his bloody mary on my white jeans ?
Is it really necessary to wear white jeans?
One more drink, and I'll move on. --Dave Matthews Band
Notice how all those listed are for airlines and not individuals?
-- toolie
From United Airlines' B737 ATOP course. They are more of a block diagram than a full schematic. If you've ever seen a B737 taken apart for a "D" check you'll realise that the full schematic would be rather large (especially for the electrical system. There are large bundles of cables everywhere).
I'm glad I'm the one who doesn't have to hunt down a break or short in any of those miles of wiring!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I think the laptop power converters change 115VAC to 15VDC with a very high, 0.99 power factor.
More seriously, I would be less enraged (as a frequent flier) if I could do productive things ... or just click on pretty widgets to kill time.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
What if there was never a crash with a privately owned 747? Then you wouldn't see any individuals right?
I did notice that it said: "Listing of all accidents in which the aircraft involved was damaged beyond repair:"
I work in this industry and have a bit of an idea of how many privately owned _large_ aircraft there are. Let's say that the sky isn't crowded with privately owned 747's.
I can see it now, you're sitting in your seat, surfing over to cnn.com, and suddenly you see a web page announcing that the airport you're landing at is having massive electrical problems resulting in planes crashing left and right... ;-)
sigs are a waste of space
Or terrorists will take advantage of this and make their demands via IRC.
You will answer my demands or else!
/dcc send demands.txt
Carousel is a lie!
Why not make it two-way and use airplanes as weather probes?
Great... just what we need... an SNMP managable 747 (talk about a need for "Collision Detection" on your network!)
;)
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Wouldn't this conflict with the policy of not using electronic devices during takeoff?
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Did it ever occur to you that some of us might use the Internet to do *fun* things? If you look a little, you will find things that are enjoyable and relaxing. :-)
For the defendant, it sure helps obfuscate that pesky jurisdiction problem!
:)
"The first 4 characters of the command began while the plane was over TN, but the line was completed over Arkansas..."
Oh... so what you're saying is, it should be tried in a Federal Court since the act was perpetrated while crossing state boundries?
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Currently it costs like $2/minute and $5 for the first minute on the in flight phones, and that's at pretty crappy quality, it can barely sustain a 14.4 modem over it. What's the price going to be for a full 64k (atleast 64k) digital link? This is probably only going to target business travellers who are on expense accounts, not your average recreational geek who pays out of his pocket for this sort of thing.
The plane has three identical generators - two driven off the main engines, and one driven by a small turbine in the tail (the APU).
The generators are connected to the engines by a CSD (Constant speed drive) that...well, runs the gennies at a constant speed. The CSD is basically just a mechanical transmission. They generate 120 volts at 400Hz. (Incidentally, that's what that 'whine' is on the audio channels that you can hear - it's the 400Hz bleeding over). DC power for the stuff that runs on DC is 28vdc. It is either provided by the battery, or by the T/R (transformer/rectifier) units from the 120VAC supply.
Normally, in flight, the APU gets shut down, and power is provided by the engine-driven generators. This energy isn't free of course - if everyone turned their laptops on, the Captain would have to push the thrust levers a little bit more forward. I don't remember what the ratings of the generators are (but if you're really interested, email, and I'll look it up).
The generators cannot supply the same bus at the same time (there's a left and right bus) because if they are out of phase, all hell breaks loose. (The B727, so I am told, can run more than one generator on a single bus, but the B727 has a flight engineer to make sure everything is in phase)
Other aircraft services, such as pressurization and airconditioning are NOT electrical (although they are controlled electrically!). The air you breathe in a plane comes out of the engines off some of the high-pressure compressor stages (the compressor is *before* the combustion chambers). This extremely hot air goes through the PACKs (pressurization and airconditioning kit) so that it reaches you at the right temperature. Incidentally this is why you sometimes get smoke in the cabin when that engine all the way out there on the wing croaks.
Have you ever wondered why the lights flicker just after engine start? Well, on the B737 at least, Boeing employs "break before make" switches when the two power buses are switched from the APU's generator to the engine driven generators, hence there's a brief power outage when one of the pilots reaches up to the overhead panel and throws the switch.
Also...the engines on the B737 are not started by electricity! They are started by compressed air. To get the engines going, first you have to crank up the APU and use its compressor bleed air to start the engines. Smaller jets have electrically started engines though (bizjets like Lears, Citations etc.)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Its even better when rental cars have them... and then have a marker that says they are not to be used for cigarettes :)
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I took and American Airlines flight recently that had power adaptors... they were car lighter style... but that was cool enough for my laptop accessory bag. :)
:P
As for in flight web-access... I'm sure it will be as reasonably priced as those in-flight phones... right? I'm sure they'll knock the price down to $1 or $2 a minute - or something equally reasonable...
BlackNova Traders
Hi! Actually, Swissair already offers "plug-into-the-seat" power supplies on all their long-haul fligts (in business and first class). All you need is the standard converter/adaptor (which you can buy on-board or in most travel shops)...
I'm sure there are plenty of more important improvements to be made to airline service.
asshole passengers arguing over who's hogging the bandwidth.
I could see some of the tech-heavy commuter legs turning into airborne Quake LAN parties.
and if they follow the billing charges for their phones, it'll only cost $9.00 an email and an additional $5.00 /min...:P
öööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööö
How Jaded Are You?
Isn't it possible to be disgusted by the food served without the bloke near me yelling at his stock broker ?
Is it really necessary that my neighborly seat neighbor is hot synching his palm while spilling his bloody mary on my white jeans ?
And all that for 6.50$ a minute (plus tax and connection charge)
Arghh!
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Check out American Airlines flights.
I'm not sure if its standard on all of them yet, but the majority of the flights I've been on lately (on the NYC Chicago run) have cigaret adapter plugs located between each pair of seats.
(ie one outlet on the two seater side of the plane and two on the three seater side of the aisle).
While not an ideal situation (a lot of us still have only the regular AC adapters, and if everyone in your row has a laptop it gets interesting), but still much better for the business traveller who knows he's going to be flying around a lot.
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right... and thats because cell phones and pagers work at a frequency that would disrupt the coms the pilot uses. maybe its just me, but if the pilot, the guy who is flying me thousands of feet in the air, tells me not to use my cell phone, I'm not going to use my cell phone. as for having to use the 11 dollar a minute phone, that's because those phones are designed not to interfere with the pilots coms. If you don't like what they charge you, don't use the phones. If you really had something important to tell someone, you probably would have done so before you got on the flight on one of those nifty 35 cent payphones. If you forgot... well, that's kinda your own fault bud.
Gave into temptation and responded to this post. I really shouldn't respond to this particular post.
Anyway, Amtrak is, yes, highly lovely. My work stuffs me on the train to Penn Station in New York every Monday, and back home again to DC every Friday, for the next 3 weeks at least.
Seats are comfy enough that I can sleep on the way up, which is fantastic. I can actually reach the foot rests on the Metroliner cars (I'm 5-0 barefoot)
And, best of all, there are 120v plugs at every seat. Which means, as long as your seatmate isn't already on his or her laptop, WOO! Three hours of Alpha Centauri, Nethack, Roller Coaster Tycoon, or whatever other mindless game you want to waste your time on for the duration of the trip.
The dining cars, btw, have Trainphones, which I believe you could plug a laptop into if you wanted. Expensive but, hey, its a connection, right? A cell modem would work just as well, or a modem-to-cell adapter.
Either way, trains are SO much nicer than planes. Room to strech out, better food, and no need for batteries. Oh, and no stupid "Turn the laptop/phone/whatever off!" rule!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Of course, it wasn't the internet; you couldn't browse to a random URL, and (IIRC) there was no email facility.
Gah. This idea is hopelessly broken. How are you going to cache Google? The most interesting parts of the web (like every search engine) generate content on-demand...-y
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
on a flight back from Hawaii in March (the wife was attending a conference, so I tagged along for cheap) one chap got booted from first class back into sardine-class with us. The flight was about 30 people overbooked.
After loudly announcing that his wife was up there in first class, repeatedly (and why, we don't know), he settled down into his seat, got out his Mac powerbook, and started watching a porn DVD.
I can hear it now, "Stewardess, can you make that man surf with both hands?"
wireless networking on jumbo jets?
you know all those near misses you hear about in the news ("TWO PLANES CAME WITHIN 150 FEET OF EACH OTHER TODAY...").
hmmm....
what is the range on 802.11 again?
-=tonyt=-
I wonder how the LAN would be set up...
:)
It would be very cool if a Quake 3 CTF match could be played between First Class and Coach passengers...
---
I wear pants.
There's a live demo of in-flight access going on right now (or least, it was going on an hour ago) by Globalstar here. It's a sort of lame but mildly amusing in-flight webcam of 2 engineers from G* and a local news crew flying around Los Angeles, talking to people on the phone over the Internet, using AOL IM, getting email, etc.
I hope this technology doesn't bleed into the cockpit. Who wants their pilot surfing the web?
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Unfortunately, once you get off the modernized tracks, you're sharing older tracks with freight trains and may find yourself delayed significantly. They're getting much better, but for business travel it really depends.
In a move that the airlines (and the computer biz!) should emulate, they recently introduced an unconditional money-back guarantee. Pretty damn good.
As for cellphones on trains, this doesn't work so well on electric routes (notably the NE Corridor, DC-Boston). I think there's too much interference. Anyone working on always-on net access from trains (which would be so, so nice!) would need to solve this problem before it would work well.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
It was $15 to be connected, then $10/minute.
That is $615 per hour. For that price, I could:
- pay for a Bell 206 helicopter AND pilot for an hour.
- pay the direct costs of a one hour flight in a Lear 35 bizjet.
- fly a Beechcraft Bonanza for six hours.
- fly our Cessna 140 for 30 hours (which is plenty of time to get across the Atlantic and back if you don't mind doing it single-engine at 85 knots)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I've never quite understood why the people who are generally decent and well off enough to fly, go nuts and embark on a drunken binge when they board a plane.
Its cause you get drunk faster at lower air pressures, and the air pressure in an airplane at 30,000 ft, is about like being at ~8,000 feet on the ground. So basically you drink what you are used to and get more kick...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I have been testing Real tournament on the tenzing system and it works great.
We will be showing this to airlines next week.
"How to kill 300 people on your next flight"
Unreal Tournament!
-- email me @ 30,000 ft
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Heh. I suppose that that _is_ the one DC connection people can standardize on, but I find it very funny that planes these days would have cigarette lighters
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Email: You'll be able to use your current email account, you won't need a special tenzing account. There's some software that basically "dials up" to the onboard server; your laptop thinks it's connected to your ISP. It's pretty transparent, except you gotta use our SpecialNiftySoftware to start the whole process. Then the server just acts as a proxy between you and your ISPs actual mail servers. Mail gets collected, and every x minutes (set by the airline) all the mail is bundled, sent to the ground, and new mail for you gets sent up to the plane. So there is a delay. Web: As noted, there's cached web content. However, it's not all just static crap. Partnerships with various places and search engines will allow searches, online orders, etc, in flight. Selected stuff will be updated during the flight, like stock quotes and maybe weather and whatever else our marketing dorks decide is necessary, but most updates will happen between flight legs. Actual connectivity: None, yet. Some companies are working on actual broadband access during flights, but it's still experimental. We hope to get partnerships with these folx later. :)
Electronic device usage: Well, standard airline rules apply. The connection is thru the plane's phone lines to the seats, so there's no special new concerns. We've asked about using wireless, but the gov doesn't like that idea at the moment.
Quake games: Probably possible, but remember that, at least at first, you're limited to phone dialup speeds (since you connect thru the modem). Whether the games are doable or not depends on how the engineers setup the onboard boxes.
-- email me @ 30,000 ft
On SW airlines they had a jack that you could connect your modem too. Instant internet. Also could access any POP server without a portable Just by sliding your credit card through the system and putting in your POP info. Whole internet was available through a PC-=Card modem tho. Guy next to me was surfing Pr0n sites.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Fly across the country and try to hack your way into the airplane's Internet server. It would be a lot more interesting than watching the lame movie.
I can just see it, "you have been owned, bi-atch", popping up on everyone's web browser.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I can see it now, the folks in economy will have 56k AOL access, while Business Class will get Satalite 100Mb Access...
I want to be the first guy to spam Economy with emails containing the First/Business class Menu!
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
I blame Expedia for any inadequacies of my info.
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
In the far distant lands of America, a large passenger plain suddenly makes a devastating landing which none survive. All of the passengers are stripped of their lives and internet connection.
CmdrTaco: I feel a disturbance in the force. It was as if a great many people cried out in unison... and then nothing.
Hemos: I felt it too.
:P~
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
What I don't know is if instrument and cabin power are automatically isolated by a low-voltage trip. There are lots of different voltages on aircraft, and I would expect breakers to isolate critical systems. But TWA800 747 was brought down by a disgusting electrical fault, so I'm not sure.
There are thousands of breakers on an aircraft. The wall behind the captain and copilot is literally covered with circuit breakers.
There are only two different voltages used on an airliner - 120VAC at 400Hz, and 28VDC.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
These privacy issues aren't anything new - the same issues have to be dealt with in nearly any internet cafe or university computer lab.
<sigh>
So be sure to tell the airlines.
``I wanna kill people at 30,000 feet!''
More like The Langoliers than Die Hard 2, I think.
Some script kiddie running win98 hacks into the plane and controls it using microsoft flight sim. 2 minutes later his laptop crashes. All the screens in the cockpit are showing blue screens of death. At least Bill Gates would get sued, the way lawyers are running thins now.
my sig sucks
According to http://www.tenzing.com/global.html , this will be subscription based -- targeting users who want to use Tenzing as their global roaming ISP on the ground -and- in the air.
It says there are NOT any per-minute charges, although large downloads may cost extra, but they'd prompt you before it happened. Additionally, it says there is no new equipment required -- that you use the laptop/pc/whatever that you already have, hooked into a phone or USB port at your seat.
See also http://www.tenzing.com/onBoard.html.
I've always wondered why the doppler effect doesn't seem to effect phones on the aircraft (even though quality does suck, which is probably the doppler effect kicking in). So if the doppler is making the quality of an airline phone terrible, how will this effect data? If it's not doppler making the phones poor quality, what is being done to combat this effect? Any ideas/answers, E-Mail me.
> The domain would probably identify you as a
> passenger of a given airline.
You'll be using your own laptop, and your own
email account, though SMTP envelope headers
might reveal that you were airborne with a
particular airline at the time.
> It could easily be misconfigured so that cookies
> survive between different legs of the same
> flight, so that someone on a latter leg would
> already be signed in to whatever servers the
> previous passenger had been visiting.
Only if you're generous enough to leave your laptop for the next passenger to use.
> And of course, just like with laptops, anyone
> sitting nearby can see what you're doing. So if
> you like to visit porn sites, you'll run a
> risk of offending other passengers. Air rage?
> Yet another cause. Oh wait, they'll probably use
> some censorware to solve that problem and create
> a bunch of new ones.
The contents of the airborne webpage cache will
be determined by the airline. If you need T&A
for inflight entertainment, petition your preferred airline.
Well, it might surprise you but we're looking at this. I work at a largish airline, and we are one of the 'six airlines' quoted in the article. We are seriously looking at putting an 802.11 network in our First and Business classes. There is a vendor who is already marketing an FAA approved radio [or so they tell us]. We do have in-seat power adapters...
On the topic of email, passengers are likely to have two levels of service, one with instant delivery, using satellite comms [read expensive], and the second, using cached delivery - the email is only sent on when the aircraft has landed at an airport. Granted the latter is only useful if you're on a multi-leg journey, and the airport you've landed at is capable of receiving the emails from the aircraft. But we're getting there. Give it a couple of years.
Actually, American Airlines already provides power outlets in both coach and first class (and business class on internation flights). Granted, I have never seen anyone actually use one of these outlets, but they are available on several seats throughout the plane.
---
The cached server approach seems to be a really, really bad idea. But it also seems like it's going to happen first and that bothers me. To us this naturally sounds bad because of all the obvious reasons but don't be surprised if some of the airlines buy into this garbage. After all, look what AOL is able to sell under the guise of technology.
I guarantee the server's cache isn't going to have what I want on it. What you end up with is a situation where there are a lot of captive eyeballs on airplanes every year and surprise, surprise, there are people out there who want to dictate what those eyeballs will see. Sounds like a perfect world scenario for the likes of Time Warner (speaking of AOL).
Some email connectivity may be better than none at all, however. I suspect that once the technology is in place customer demand and preference will eventually force the airlines to switch over to providing true real-time internet connecions. But if Terzen is able to sell their junk the time frame will end up being later rather than sooner. With the entrenched hubris of airline management today it will be years before any airline that uses the Terzen system realizes that their system sucks. Their short-term evaluation of a cached server system will lead them to conclude that "Gee, the Internet isn't as popular as we thought."
If they conclude that the time frame for true internet connectivity will only be pushed even further out into the future. Having said all that, I'd want to buy into Terzen's IPO and then sell out 6 months later and short the stock as much as I could. Their technology sucks and long-term is doomed to failure.
Well as mentioned before, what does this thing cost. I can see lots of money going down the drain real quick, because when they bill, they don't do it by the minute, they do it by the page (at least right now if you use email on a United flight.) Plus they add a hefty connection fee.
Second thing is, with the seats already so small in coach, how are they going to fit a keyboard and mouse? Please make sure your tray table and keyboard are up, and your mouse is stored correctly in the pocket in front of you? That's a mouthful.
Finally which browser are they going to use? Are they going to use a commercial one or build one themselves? If they use a pre-built one, what security issues, and such will they be getting into. I can just see it now, I get on a plane, and there's a bunch of bookmarks to whitehouse.com.
Okay, well I've ranted enough, time for someone else.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Better yet, put up a graphic of the plane crashing have "DANGER" flashing in red letters!
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Visit porn sites, or 'read' Porn mags - no diff really. I have yet to hear of a parent going into 'air rage' because little Johnny was looking at some dirty mag over someone's shoulder.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
In the print version of IEEE Spectrum this month (not sure if it is on-line), they had an article on improvements in aviation weather forecasting.
One of the things that they want to do is transmit real-time weather data to aircraft in flight. The problem is that it takes a lot more bandwidth then they have currently available to do this, so they are going to start putting in high-speed communications links on aircraft (via satellite, etc.)
The problem with this is that the increased bandwidth costs big $, so they are thinking of offsetting the cost to the airlines by offering some of the spare bandwidth to passengers for entertainment services including internet access.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
It would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that such policies are unmitigated crap. Which would be helpful.
sulli
RTFJ.
It's also very important that the internet access be real internet access, not some "air traveler portal" piece of shit. Local caching may be fine for Yahoo et al. (perhaps one could install a mini Akamai server on the plane?) but if this is anything like those touch-screen terminals in the airports now, it's close to useless. We need:
- ethernet ports to plug into, with DHCP;
- full access to the net (slow speed is ok);
- non http/pop3 applications (telnet, ping, ipsec); and
- no mandatory home page or ads!
A fast intranet would be nice too, so people can AIM and/or Quake with each other.
If it's designed this way, it will be fabulous and make me switch airlines. I'd even pay $5/flight for it. But I'm not holding my breath.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
It's because they can't smoke on the plane, can't smoke in the airports, and go insane from nicotine fits! Aaaahh!
[A]bort, [R]etry, [P]lummet?
Yeah, but you also never heard of controversies over someone read porn magazines in libraries either... but you can't swing a dead cat without hearing about the controversy of viewing Internet porn in a public place.
There's a big difference.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Reboot plane now?
You've hit it right on the head. Most people who complain about cell-phones say it's because people talk so loud, but you never hear them complain about people who talk loud to another person in the same room. What's really bugging them is they can't eavesdrop on the whole conversation.
Virginia (AP)
America Online (AOL) announced they would be providing broad band internet access on all major domestic flights at a press conference this week. The large internet service provider will be installing AOL proprietary servers on all aircraft operating in the United States within two months.
"We know people need AOL, even when on an airplane" stated Robert Worpindorf, AOL's new VP of aerospace connectivity. "People need to stay connected, and when away from family and friends, they need the rich, vibrant content only AOL can provide."
When asked about bandwidth, Worpindorf responded "Well, because of the nature of these connections, our bandwidth requirements will double, but, as always, we are ready for it, and no user will ever see any noticeable disruption in service"
AOL's press release stated airline travelers would receive AOL stocks, news reports, and "Buddies. Everyone love's their AOL buddies".
AOL's announcement comes at a difficult moment for its aerospace connectivity division, which has received some criticism recently over a communications failure on the Russian space station Mir. Mir astronauts had received an AOL 5.0 CD-ROM in the mail, and installed it on the station's main communications computer, knocking out all network communication stacks previously installed. After a 45 minute call to AOL technical support (which suggested reinstalling IE5), AOL decided it must be a modem problem. To date, Mir can only access terrestrial busy signals.
The Internet is generally stupid
I think the company "www.avrotec.com" is partnered with Microsoft and NASA to create the next generation "Highway In The Sky" ("HITS") aircraft instruments.
Supposedly, they will make it "as easy to fly as it is to drive a car". You just joystick your way through a tunnel/mesh to land and take off, and everything else is autopilot.
They run windows apps, too. Shame that NASA is using our tax dollars, partnered with MS, to create all this stuff, in what is essentially a closed consortium.
I think I'd be more comfortable if it was open sourced!
Does anyone know any more details on this project?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Finally, corporate assholes can e-mail PowerPoint presentations about nothing-in-particular while they fly from Holiday Inn to Holiday Inn!
Good God! Do you have any idea of the power that runs through an aircraft? Do you KNOW how many watts a single 100,000hp engine produces (of which the 777 has two of)? Thats roughly 74.5Mw per engine. Aircraft are designed to run on a single engine at take-off (the most aircraft-stressful portion of flight). That is a LOT of extra wattage.
Power was never a consideration or drawback - the weight of the extra wiring is (and always will be). That is one of the major reason US Airlines are hesitating to sign up for the inflight-net service - the extra weight of the equipment needed. In aircraft, weight == money. The more weight the aircraft has, the less it can carry. The less it can carry, the less they make off of it.
-- toolie
Despite their general availability for some years, UAL chose not to put them in coach. Typical behavior of the world's largest, and crappiest, airline. So I have limited expectations that web access will be any good, at least on UAL.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Can I play cs_747 in the air then?
In case of a water landing, you will find information on the use of floatation devices at this URL...
Please fasten your javascripts.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
http://www.panix.com/~stern/bad_crazy/bc6.html#Ano ther Reason to Fly Coach
Actually, he took a crap on the first class drink cart.
While I was looking for that link, I found this one
http://www.flyana.com/rage.html
It talks about some interesting causes of "air rage".
-B
The reason for disallowing use of certain electronic devices on airplanes is that there were a series of unexplained mishaps around 10 years ago. In-flight instrument failure that investigators to this day haven't figured out the reasons why it happened.
So the FAA said "Gee, it COULD have been portable electronic devices that are to blame" and imposed the ban. No laboratory test has ever shown conclusively that portable consumer electonic devices are even CAPABLE of interfering with aircraft systems. Never. It's a bogus ban based on anecdotal evidence.
It has bothered me for a long time that they continue to perpetuate this falsehood. At the same time I am grateful that I don't have to sit near people who are constantly on their cell phones. That would drive me crazy. I hope they keep the ban on cell phones for purely aesthetic reasons even after they come to their senses about the non-existant danger they always tell you about.
This is as stupid as dont use a cell phone or pager on the plane, or you'll crash it. If I have not been trolled... You mau have missed this article, Cell Phone Usage on Airplanes == Bad Idea
Granted the engines are _very_ powerful. But that power isn't produced in the form of electrical power, it all goes into THRUST. Electrical power comes from an auxiliary shaft to a small alternator. In some aircraft (B727?), there's an auxiliaries engine.
You can bet to conserve weight (as you correctly emphasise) that these auxiliaries have been made as small as possible without much extra. Uprating them is likely to require complete engine redesign and/or at least recertification. Easier to conserve cabin power.
What I don't know is if instrument and cabin power are automatically isolated by a low-voltage trip. There are lots of different voltages on aircraft, and I would expect breakers to isolate critical systems. But TWA800 747 was brought down by a disgusting electrical fault, so I'm not sure.
Perhaps the end result of this will be that the question of "filtered" or "non-filtered" will be asked at the counter as a replacement to the old smoking vs. non-smoking.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
dude.. airplanes rock yeh, it only costs $5 a min too. i carded so its free cool free pr0n too.
nerdfarm.org
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
What a dumb thing. I cant belive someone would even pay for a service like this. People almost seem to want to spend every second of thier lives working. Come on, its a plane ride,have a drink and relax for crying out loud.
-antistuff-
Mess Stuff Up
Honestly, the best bet may be a touch-screen 200x300 lcd, if they want to keep the cost down. A full-screen sized unit would be more expensive to replace, and would require a stronger initial investment.
At $1/minute, I'd back off. But if it were provided as a rental for the whole flight, say $20, that's reasonable. Their pricing model remains to be seen, I suppose.
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
but it should make for some interesting in-flight posts to rec.aviation during a crash.
EMUSE.NET
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
IRCing en route to another location:
(Arm0nd): Damn, this flight sucks.
(H3lg4): what're they serving for the meal?
(Arm0nd): some kind of fish shit...nasty...
(Arm0nd): brb
* Arm0nd is away (crashing into a large mountain)
*** SignOff: Arm0nd(ping timeout for Arm0nd(user@americanairlines.net))
Yes, check on that oil sheikh statement and post what you find out. Sounds like an urban legend to me.
;-)
To the original poster of that claim, do you have a URL containing details of this? If it's just claimed on Slashdot, it's hard to believe but if it is on a Web page, then it's just gotta be true...
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Will this in-flight Internet and e-mail be accessible via an RJ-45 jack, or will there be terminals installed in the seats?
Yet another reason for airlines to raise prices.
I've used those little AirFones before, and they're handy, but they aren't cheap.
Also, why does that stupid doubleclick crap interfere with my ability to read the article? Turning off Java/Javascript fixed this, but I am not amused.
This quote is hilarious:
Wow, they've got the whole internet stored on there! I'm impressed...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I think you are full of shit. Here's a list of all 747's taken out of service, and (for most) the reason why:
http://aviation-safety.net/datab ase/type/104.shtml
You tell me which the other two are.
If your main purpose is to attract new customers, but you also want to cover some of your costs, $5/flight x 50 people x 4 flights per day would probably make economic sense. Besides, would you pay any more than $5/flight for internet access?
sulli
RTFJ.
I don't think aircraft in-flight have significant extra available electric generator power
;)) but it's pretty DAMN crazy.
/. right before the annual show (WAEA). Don't you guys understand we (the engineers) are all working our balls off to get the equipment ready for the show!
:)
Yes, actually they do. To give you an idea of In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) Systems out there, their power requirements range roughly from 7.500 to 35.000 Watts for a 300 seat installation (with individual displays).
I don't want to go into the details of IFE systems, because I am biased (I work for the one and only, tha best!
I do have to say that it's painful to finally have an article about our industry on
Gotta run (some wires tween aircraft seats
Breace
What I wonder is do they plan on providing a simple RJ-45 plug so you can hop onto your laptop and surf or we talking there is a keyboard built into the seat back tray or something and you get a WebTV style interface. There is more to do online with a computer than just web surf. If they talk about the cached web pages that are periodically updated why bother providing laptop connection. I can guarentee that people who bring laptops on board have much more in mind that trying to surf the web.....Just think of the future of the Quake 3 Mile High Club :)
_________________________________________ Stuff to Know Provided by Pimprin _________________________________________
When I read this article, I thought of this User Friendly episode.
But seriously, wouldn't it be cool to be racking up frequent flyer miles and frags at the same time?
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
How long before someone makes a joke about the airplane running windows and cra.... forget it.
BOSTON SUCKS!
The prices I have seen quoted for this service are ridiculous, especially given the testimony of one employee of the provider that this is not real, live access - it's batched email and cached/canned web content.
Even if I am on an expense account $12/hr for 'internet access' is ridiculous. I can batch up my emails myself and send them when I get on the ground thank you very much.
The same thing applies to in room hotel broadband. Most of these services are priced at something like $10-$15/day. What?! Most business travellers might connect for thirty minutes each night to check email. For this a modem is quite enough, and virtually free. Its fine for web surfing too. I just don't get that much more out of a broadband pipe to justify that kind of cost.
These bozos need to learn something about pricing. When you offer a service and charge a hell of a lot more than the competing service, it had better offer a lot more, either in the way of convenience or services.
On a plane the competing service is waiting to get to a land line on the ground. Most people will gladly do this, accept perhaps on extremely long flights. Add to that the complexity of setting up the service and the software and the in flight internet access just does not seem to be a competitive service - it is way over priced and only marginally more convenient than the free options.
Also on the plane, Internet access is competing with the inflight movie and reading materials - which are virtually free to the traveller. This is about the only reason I might browse the internet on a long flight, for entertainment purposes. I don't know that reading some canned day old wall street journal web site on my laptop is better than reading the real thing I bought for 75 cents in the terminal.
They're all going to be at the WAEA show in Anaheim, near Los Angeles, next Monday to Friday. It does cost $135 per ticket for the public though, but maybe you can share tickets :-)
They're the people who are actually going to be implementing on-flight web access, on-demand video, etc.
I would mention the in-flight entertainment company I'm working for during the summer here, but we don't want to be slashdotted! But we've got satellite linkup working for Net access in a development model, with USB connectors for laptops etc. (software for that not written yet), along with cool proper on-demand video - pause, fast forward, rewind all work - much better than what I've experienced on Virgin Atlantic recently!
* hAx0r has joined channel #hAx
wr0d
i hAv3 jUZt hAx0r3d tHA iNfL1gHt c0mPUtAh
0n tH1s 7373131337
aND n0w 3y3 d0 Fr33stYl3 pAtcH0rZ l1nk1nG dA w1nGz t0 mAh f0rc3-f33dBAcK j0yst1x p0rT 0n qUak3
ph00lz!!! 34t l33t m4cH-1 r0x0r!!!
* hAx0r glides fr33stYl3
(airplane rocks back and forth erratically)
aAAaH! ra1lgUnZ de4tH!
0k l3tZ trY r0ck3t jUmP
(airplane spins into a nosedive)
wh3r3 1z tHA bUtT0n f0r g0d-m0d3?
(*crash*)
n000! d1s 0c3aN 1z m4d3 0v lAvA!
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
* Quits: hAx0r (Connection reset by peer))
For some inflight entertainment, send the following email to the terminal of someone a few seats away from you:
"If you don't get the back out of your seat out of my face RIGHT NOW, I am going to squeeze my ranch dressing down the back of your neck. You have been warned."
Lufthansa overseas flights have power outlets in the armrests of all of the business class seats.
* hAx0r has joined channel #hAx
<hAx0r> wr0d
<hAx0r> i hAv3 jUZt hAx0r3d tHA iNfL1gHt c0mPUtAh
<hAx0r> 0n tH1s 7373131337
<hAx0r> aND n0w 3y3 d0 Fr33stYl3 pAtcH0rZ l1nk1nG dA w1nGz t0 mAh f0rc3-f33dBAcK j0yst1x p0rT 0n qUak3
<hAx0r> ph00lz!!! 34t l33t m4cH-1 r0x0r!!!
* hAx0r glides fr33stYl3
(airplane rocks back and forth erratically)
<hAx0r> aAAaH! ra1lgUnZ de4tH!
<hAx0r> 0k l3tZ trY r0ck3t jUmP
(airplane spins into a nosedive)
<hAx0r> wh3r3 1z tHA bUtT0n f0r g0d-m0d3?
(*crash*)
<hAx0r> n000! d1s 0c3aN 1z m4d3 0v lAvA!
<hAx0r> Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
* Quits: hAx0r (Connection reset by peer))
that was only 6' square?
Airline internet access is a logical corrolary overall erosion of time to relax. I'ts inevitable that it will happen, and it will do good for some people some of the time, but most of the time it means you can arrive at your destination completely wiped out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
TWA Flight 800 was a 747 that was purchased from an oil sheik in the mid-east. It was one of three aircraft (the other two which also exploded in mid-flight) that the sheik had specially modified. IIRC, those are the ONLY 747s in the history of the aircraft that were brought down by electrical failure.
Not ALL of the power is used to provide thrust (although you are correct when you say most is). As was pointed out before, there are a few airlines that already have jacks at every seat. My point was that it was NOT limited by power (as the original poster suspected), but by weight and money.
-- toolie
The 'phones currently on most planes are low-level satellite up-links (normally the Racal MCS-6000 nowadays, which has an uplink bandwidth of about 64K, IIRC) which are then split into up to 8 lines (radio for cockpit and 7 speech lines of about 8Kbps - if not all lines are in use, they have 3 lines of 17.8K, or somesuch, and an extra one. This, as you can guess, is not great, but when it came out, some years (5?) ago, it was pretty nifty.
:-).
Now, however, broadband satellite uplinks are on the way - with a 128K + shared data pipe connection for passengers, and dynamically portioned speech bandwidth of about the same, featuring useful items like a data uplink channel that relays data about the plane's systems to an external system (redundancy for the black box system, and useful as an aide in diagnosing problems from the ground as well as in the air). These should be avaliable RSN, and will be fitted to a plane near you soon. Hopefully
James F.
There could be a lot of privacy issues here.
The domain would probably identify you as a passenger of a given airline.
It could easily be misconfigured so that cookies survive between different legs of the same flight, so that someone on a latter leg would already be signed in to whatever servers the previous passenger had been visiting.
And of course, just like with laptops, anyone sitting nearby can see what you're doing. So if you like to visit porn sites, you'll run a risk of offending other passengers. Air rage? Yet another cause. Oh wait, they'll probably use some censorware to solve that problem and create a bunch of new ones.
Anyway, there are a bunch of issues for the airlines to deal with. Personally, I would prefer if they just provided a power outlet and an ethernet port (or run wireless networking--wouldn't the FAA love that!).
Now the airline that makes it free instead of $$$/minute will see a huge boost in ticket sales.
I don't think aircraft in-flight have significant extra available electric generator power for more than a few first-class seats. They do suck back ~30W each. Or to get it, they would have to turn off reading/cabin lights.
Hopefully, it wouldn't come down to: "Please unplug your laptops. The captain has just lost all the flight instruments!"
I just flew from Cleveland to Houston last night on a decent flight w/ real time flight info of airspeed/altitude/direction/position etc on the overhead screens...I must say though, the music channels sucked. I would have much rather listened to a broadcast feed of the Indians beating Boston!
I've been taking Amtrak recently instead of flying (going back and forth between Philadelphia and Washington DC). Lemme tell ya... its great! I've got more leg room than I would in first class (Important when you're 6'4"), and there is a 120v outlet on each row. I plug my laptop in, get a beer from the dining car, stretch out, and watch a dvd. Also, its usually not very crowed, so I often get a row to myself. Coupled with not having to deal with airport bullshit, I'm sold. Check out Amtrak the next time you travel.
--
Donald Roeber
Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
should be on food quality before they offer internet access......geez...you have to eat to keep up the energy to surf the web anyways.
The anti-salmon
It makes me wonder how this is going to be managed. Could you imagine the illegal hackers in-flight, breaking into systems? Who's responsible? The airline? If that's the case, are they going to track usage by the seat number? Ever moved into another seat on an airline? Not hard is it? Potential for disaster...
There have been some interesting comments about the Tenzing system that paint it to be pretty crap. However, a lot of these are off the mark. Btw - I'm a developer at Tenzing so I have a good grasp on the product, what we are trying to do and just wanted to reply to clear a couple of things up.
;)
People connect to the system with their own laptop. These connections are currently done through the phone handset on the plane, but we are also working with USB/Firewire solutions. Our development focus is Internet access and caching not aviation hardware, so we are designed to work on any network infrastructure an airline has or will have.
The web cache seems to have struck a nerve with a whole lot of people. There are bandwidth constraints when working on planes at the moment that make live web access for the average (i.e. non-millionaire) traveler not viable - i.e. current communications links on commercial aircraft are around 9600bps over North America and about 2400bps over a satellite. Sure the onboard cache isn't the most ideal solution, but it works today. As bandwidth grows, so will the services we provide.
Connecting a private jet, which isn't under the jurisdiction of the FAA and whose owner has a fat wallet is one thing, supporting 50+ concurrent users on a commercial aircraft is a whole other story.
People were also upset about time-based charges. Tenzing is not charging per minute, we are working off a subscription based pricing model. You can send and receive email, surf the web, book hotels and play games all you want.
Oh, and even though Tenzing are based in Seattle, you will be pleased to know we live in a penguin friendly environment - mmm... flying penguins
Of course the most important topic is games (many of which have been thoroughly tested by Tenzings dedicated engineering team). You'll be pleased to here that multiplayer games work fine - especially Rocket Arena 3.
Some of you guys almost talk as big as me in a game of Quake. If you some of you are serious about attempting to hack our box or interested in working on it, send me an email - sejast10000@yahoo.com.
On many Canadian flights you have power available, at least in Business Class. You guys gotta get with it!
I can find out (unfiltered by the networks) all about the latest demonstration that I missed because work sent me to the other end of the country at the last possible moment!
Just have to figure out how to charge the connection fee to the contract without raising a flag...
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I'm pissed off, This is as stupid as dont use a cell phone or pager on the plane, or you'll crash it. Instead use our 11 buck a minute phone to connect to the net. When I first got my pilot 5000 some stewerdess told me it was disrupting the pilot, and that I would have to turn it off.
It's for the children, remember.
As is typical of MSNBC, they're taking old news and presenting it as a dramatic new development. I was surprised not to see exclamation points in this article.
Got Rhinos?