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Boeing to Have Net Access on Airliners in 2002
wowbagger writes: "According to Yahoo,
Boeing is going to have Internet access on airliners in 2002. The stated cost will be about $20/hour, and it will be strictly BYOC - it sounds like they'll be loaning you a wireless card. I wonder how this will stack up with the FAA regs against using "anything that sends or receives a signal", how many clueless users will not be able to configure their systems to use the card, and how many 1337 h@><0r doods will be 0w3n1ng other passenger's machines. Think I'll review my iptables setup before I fly..."
a/s/l? 30/m/er..
Actually, the need to have 4 sats in view is not due to calculations involving x,y,z,t (Cartesian coordinates) but rather with a simple spherical geometry problem. The basic calculation that a GPS receiver performs is quite simple: linear distance from the sat. If we know the distance from one sat we describe a sphere. Distance from two different sats describes a circle (the intersection of two spheres). Distance from three sats describes two points (intersection of a circle and a sphere). Distance from four sats gives us a single point. As stated, three sats usually give a good approximation since one of the solution points is far from the earth's surface.
...who got that clever reference? It was from the trip the Simpsons clan took to Japan. Bart turned off his Game Boy (as requested) and the plane immediately did a nose dive.
I have led software projects on airline entertainment systems (yes a net connection is entertainment). Keep in mind that you have different levels of in-flight entertainment systems. Local hops don't even have audio. National flights have audio plus a single video channel (often overhead). International flights are the ones that have VoD (Video on Demand), games, etc. Don't expect to see this on anything less than internatinal flights. I assume that this system will cost in the range of US$10M. (Flight qual hardware is VERY expensive say several US$K for the 10" LCD you watch TV on). That is as about as much as the rest of the intertainment system on a 747. I also expect the laptop connection to drop by the way side. (Proposed connections include local modem - you modem via the phone jack to an on plane POP, or LAN - via USB or ethernet).
There is a small set top box computer under each seat (or more correctly several CPU cards in a box under a seat for that row). These set top box like sysem support VoD, user interface, etc. On many system games are avalible. These system range from 286 class to low end P-Is with about 100 MHz 486 class systems becoming the norm. Remember that heat and power are big problems on aircraft. (The entertainment system was suspected for a while as the cause of the fire on the Swiss Air 747 ooff Canada a few years back). You can expect to start seeing browsing to become the norm on these in-seat system. This eliminates most of the tech support.
Great.... my seat will be the one where some jerk crammed their chewing gum into the RJ-45 jack.
I guess.. if you like 500ms latency. :-) It uses a satellite connection.
It's against FCC rules to use a phone from a hot-air baloon, and from parachutes - both of which are not regulated by the FAA.
I think you'll find, with the exception of certain "ultralight" class hot air balloons, that the FAA does regulate hot air balloons. You need a pilots license to fly them, and the balloon itself requires regular Airworthiness certification inspections.
The frequencies that cellphones work at basically travel straight, no bouncing of the atmosphere. So a cell phone in plane at 30,000 feet can be seen by cell phone towers up to roughly 250 miles away. Approximately a 200,000 square mile area. That's alot of cellphone towers.
I'm guessing they'll just put an ethernet jack in the seatback phone unit. Then it'll work like the box they use to provide ethernet in hotel rooms over the existing wiring. Wonder if they'll have free on the plane content like the hotels...
Give us a nice updating page with current location, altitude, speed, and an updating map like some of the newer planes I've been on.
(Not that I've been on many new planes as Northwest doesn't believe in them.)
Where do you guys get this stuff?
The mobile phones that I know of use frequencies around 800 (AMPS and others), 900 (GSM), 1800 (GSM) or 1900 (all PCS) MHz. I' m not aware of any ~1300 MHz band.
I didn't see in the art where wireless was proposed. Instead they would hand you a port to an armchair connector and run everyones connection through a wired hub. Wired as in not wireless although the actual connection will probably be Ethernet through a copper to fiber translator/repeater. Why fiber? To save weight of course.
I can't wait for the next computer movie where Sandra Bullock gets to fly a crippled airliner taken over by terrorists by her laptop machine from the bathroom at the back of the plane while it's taking its payload of nerve gas to the Whitehouse on the day all the handicapped orphans are visiting and Sandra's personal life is all fucked up because the father figure/mentor she was sleeping with just kicked her out of bed to find himself as a volunteer worker for Tibetan Freedom.
You know some towelhead'll be kicking down the door and poor Sandra has to put the plane into a roll and stand it on one wing to knock the towelhead down then she bursts out the head door and chick-fu's his ass.
You know it'll be a titanium G4 that's bulletproof.
I ask that passengers put their Hotmail accounts
in the logged out positions, and put on their seat
belts. It has been a pleasure carrying you on
AOL-Time-Warner-American-Airlines, and I hope
you'll choose to fly with us again.
He didn't have time to read, he was going for first post!
Only the Slashdot commentary mentions wireless.
It says the airplane's net connection will be satellite-based (for obvious reasons), but the article says nothing about the makeup of the internal LAN. I'm betting they just provide Ethernet sockets, since it's way more standard than wireless.
There's no way in hell they'll loan out wireless cards. Firstly, they'll lose them to absent-mindedness if not actual criminal activity. Secondly, your stewardress is NOT going to help you install it. Remember that your average travelling businessperson is a sales droid and would not be able to install the drivers themselves. Thirdly, there is a major issue with the emissions of wireless cards possibly interfering with the plane, which the FAA is not about to overlook.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
wouldn't that be "last post!"??
--
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
Read what you see, not what you think you see. :)
Wasn't "Connexion" one of the sites you could download Netscape (or was it Internet Explorer?) from?
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Actually, the no electronics law/rule is really only during take off and landing, atleast as far as I know, I have used plrenty of electronic devices on planes.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Having not read the article yet, since I cannot connect ot it for some apparent reason unknown to me, I would hazard a guess that the network signal would prolly piggy back over the GPS signal since a plane always has contact with atleast 3 GPS sat's at any point in time.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Cost is negligible; wireless requires less infrastrucutre and tearing up of the plane, plus network sockets can get zapped.
Wireless means no wires hanging out. It means they can hand you can grab a card from them when you get on the plane and turn it in when you get off....
I wonder what the odds are of geting linux/mac support on this... Probably not to good....
Passengers forget to turn phones off all the time. It should be the job of the plane manufacturers to make planes safe in the presence of passengers.
/. readers truly never get on planes. I know I might be the other extreme (gf works for an airline, I fly 4-6 times a month) but this is ridiculous.
The planes you get on are much, much older than you think. They don't predate bag phones, but they definitely predate your spiffy handheld Nokia that plays games. (Think about the DC-10's - those bad boys are older than I am, and I'm not that young.) Furthermore, the planes were designed long before they were built. These planes just weren't designed to handle dozens of people holding battery-operated microcomputers, let alone 2-way radios (which is essentially what a cell phone is.)
These Boeings that are coming out are the first generation of planes that are specifically designed with today's wired user in mind, and as such, you're seeing wireless access on board.
2.4GHz is already polluted by wideband radiation in planes, since they use microwave ovens to heat the food. So there can be some level of confidence that you 802.11 tranciever isn't going to bring the plane down.
No, they don't use microwaves to heat ALL the food, only a few small things. I mean really, can you imagine them heating up meals for 120 people in microwaves? Even if they had half a dozen microwaves, and each meal only took 30 seconds, that's a long time. They get the meals pre-heated from the ground crew - those meal trucks that pull up to the plane, and then rise up to the back door.
However being charged money to get on the net is not really a necessity is it? One person sets his laptop up as a gateway/NAT router and everyone else sets up as an ad-hoc 802.11 network. That would save people a bit of cash.
I'm going to shell out my money for internet access on the plane, which isn't going to be fast by any means, and then I'm going to share it with other people for free? And furthermore, I'm going to waste time on my flight to run up and down the aisles asking if anybody wants to set up a quick network? Riiight. For that matter, we could do this today - the GTE Airfones have 9600 (woohoo) data access, and we could easily set up connection sharing using one of those bad boys. But we don't, because in an airplane, the last thing you want to do is get to know people up and down the plane, especially the ones who are trying to mooch internet access.
So lobby lobby your MP/Senator/FAA rep/garage mechanic/EU minister to change the rules. It will improve the quality of your traveling life.
No, not until the current fleet of planes is replaced. And not just replaced at one airline, but replaced at all of them - remember that "value" airlines usually buy their planes used from other airlines, so even today's planes will be in service for 20-30 years.
How the parent post got modded up to 5 Insightful is disgusting, either that or
What's your damage, Heather?
Actually, being online in an airplane would allow you to communicate with people during a plane crash, something passengers normally can't do.
Have you flown in the last ten years? GTE has Airfones in the back of the seats. For $2-$5 a minute, you can call anybody you want, get stock quotes, get the weather, and more.
With the 'net though, you could discuss the entire situation much sooner. Write entire emails.
Again, you can do that now too. The Airfones have modem jacks.
What's your damage, Heather?
/*The planes are. The avionics aren't. That's all that matters*/
HA! HAHAHAHAHA! WOOOOOOO! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAAHAHHAHHAAAAA!
ANd you've never worked for a major airline, have you? Obviously not! I DO and I can assure you we have some goddamned STOCK avionics (well, stuff built to original spec) and those damn things were built in the 50's and 60's.
Get a clue.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
No, bad gmanske. No mentioning company secrets. Don't make me come down there.
Anyways, just poking around here at work (and yes I haven't read the article so I don't know if it already says this, mark me redundant as appropriate) I've discovered that Connexion is likely to be using DHCP for the IP address assignment and that it will actually be using Linux servers. So anything that's standards compliant (i.e. can talk DHCP and TCP) should work.
.sig?
It's against FCC rules to use a phone from a hot-air baloon, and from parachutes - both of which are not regulated by the FAA. Minor corrections here: first, balloons are definitely regulated by the FAA, and second, the FCC restrictions specifically mention cellular phones. Portable phones using other technology (do the old pre-cellular radio telephones still exist?) wouldn't have or need such restrictions.
Notice that (b)(5) allows the operator to exempt any device if they can determine that it won't interfere with the avionics. They may certainly exempt wireless ethernet if they so choose.
The only devices they cannot exempt are cellphones, as the FCC regulations prohibit using them while airborne. The FCC reason for this is that an airborne cellphone can communicate with a vast number of cells and clog up the network. The consipiracy theorists contend that the providers of the rather expensive sky-phone services lobbied the FCC to ban cellphones thus removing competition.
This looks catered to all of us game freaks. Up side: It would be cool to frag that dude due to turbulence. Downside: Loosing a match due to landing would suck. Whoops forgot, can't have kiddies playing those kind of games in public.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
Re - "FAA regs against using 'anything that sends or receives a signal'"
It's actually not an FAA rule. It's FCC. The FCC forbids using a cellphone from any platform not attached to the ground.
It's against FCC rules to use a phone from a hot-air baloon, and from parachutes - both of which are not regulated by the FAA.
Both the FCC and FAA websites suck, but here's a pretty interesting article. The rule is in FCC reg 22.925 - maybe somebody else will have better luck finding the text.
The nutshell is that the problem hasn't got anything do to with interference with navigation, but rather interference with ground systems. Cellphone just weren't designed to be able to "see" so many different cell towers.
_Am
DHCP is your friend in situations like this. Depending on how smart your OS is, it can be totally automatic. IE with MacOS v8.1 -> 9.1, you can plug a shut down laptop into an ethernet network, turn it on, and it will automatically configure and activate TCP/IP, this is even if your default communications method is set to dialup :)
And now they want to bring radio transmitters on board?
Commercial aircraft already have radio transmitters on board. Plenty have telephone systems, for the passengers, which play no part in helping fly the plane.
What's more, planse are actually pretty resiliant to stray RF frequencies
They had better be otherwise RADAR would be a non starter for air traffic control. Let alone all those RADAR systems and other radio transmitters actually on board planes.
Once when we were landing someone actually had their cellphone ring. They'd forgot to turn it off for the whole flight.
The real issue with cellphones is that having them operating of aircraft can confuse the base stations. (Even if it's an unworkable situation radio frequences and processor time is being used attempting to keep the handset registered.) Also there may be issues of commercial lobbying by the satillite phone industry.
Actually, the "radios" are prerecorded tapes that run through the PA system and are looped for passenger enjoyment.
They may be from tape or CD or HDD. There is nothing to stop an aircraft picking up radio or TV broadcasts. Just that they either need to do a frequency handover with ground based transmitters or only fly within the "footprint" of a satellite.
According to this piece of news from AP, Boeing's biggest competitor, European airplane manufacturer Airbus, has similar plans. They recently teamed up with Seattle-based company Tenzing Communications for offering similar service onboard their planes.
I recall reading that the captain of an airliner can shut off the seat-back telephones in an emergency and that an airline was recommending that they do so if a crash seemed emminent.
This may be a good idea during a terrorist incident -- although I suspect the motives are to control the PR spin that people get and to reduce the damages for emotional distress that next-of-kin can claim.
the service operates at data rates of 5 mbps for incoming traffic and 1mbps for outgoing.
What service _is_ that (mobile wireless 5Mb?!) and where else can I buy it from?
God Fucking Damnit
The reason cell phones are not allowed on flights is that the phone, if it makes connection with ground stations, will be trying to connect to several dozen of more groundstations at the same time since they are all available when you're that high. It ties up the cell phone system, and the frequent switching between stations causes a lot of dropped calls, etc. While the usually don't let you use electronic equipment during takeoff and landing (arguably the two most dangerous times in flight) it's more of a safety precaution, although it is absolutely true that today's airplane equipment can be adversely affected by todays external electronic equipment (especially transmitters such as cell phones). By limiting the usage of these devices the plane has a better chance of getting home.
-Adam
This sig 80% recycled bits, 20% post user.
sorry, folks, but if the company I'm working for puts me in steerage^H^H^H^H^H^Hcoach , do you really think I'm going to shell out $20 an hour to check my mail and get work done? it'll wait 'til I get there :p
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
I guess that's better than $2/minute phone access.
Why are you constantly tracking your position every time you get on an airplane? You already know where you are: You are on an airplane. Leave the airplane's position up to the navigator and watch the damn movie.
Web surfing in flight is already happening. Air Canada just completed a pilot project through a company called Tenzing.
http://www.tenzing.com/
Failure is not an option. It comes automatically enabled in every Microsoft product.
Yeah, and then take the laptop and a webcam with you to broadcast to the world in glorious technicolour and stereo sound your application for entry into the Mile High Club :-)
"Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
It sounds more likely that this is going to be a setup similar to what some airlines have now; the airphones have modem jacks in the back.
More likely than the airline providing a wireless card, will be the airline throwing a 10base jack in the back of your chair, that you plug straight into. Since just about everyone has a NIC in their laptops these days, it would be a simple thing to do.
Have you had a FedEx plane drop from the sky and land on your house recently? I thought not.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
It wouldn't be very reasonable to pay $7 for a cold ham and cheese sandwich either. But wait, this is air travel we're talking about. If they can charge you $7 for a 23c sandwich at the airport, I'm sure that they can charge whatever the fuck they want once you get in the air.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Everybody assumed the connection would be wireless because that's what the article said.
Remember 2 things about aircraft:
1) every kilo is precious. Adding ethernet wireing to every seat is going to add hundreds of kilos to the weight of the aircraft.
2) Aircraft are old, and retofitting them expensive. It's a lot easier to set up a wireless LAN than to go back and rewire the seats.
Not to mention the danger of tripping over the network cables in case of an unplanned rapid aircraft egress due to unforseen circumstances, the fact that only a small fraction of the passengers will want network access at any given time, and the electrical risk if the systems are connected to the plane (can you say FAA regs? I though you could).
www.eFax.com are spammers
Have you ever flown?
"Sir I'm veeerry sorrry that the connection isn't working . . . but if you mention it again I'll have to put you in handcuffs, sir."
The next time I meet an airline employee who is even marginally helpful will be the first time. Every time I have interacted with one he or she was at best totally indifferent, and at worst actively trying to piss me off or fuck up my trip.
The only expert you are ever going to see in the cabin is the pilot on a trip to the john. Remember, these are the same SOBs who would have their customers breath filthy, disgusting air in order to save fuel.
whoa....folks...this is something called "humor" (in its more rare form -- something called "sarcasm") ... chilllllll out.
nlh
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
tcpnice -n 20 host not localhost
:)
I recently received an internship at Boeing in southern california, and I must say I am impressed. These "PhD Engineers" that you speak of have built the airplanes that you fly on, the satellites that you rely on, and the delta rockets that launch them into space.
I have seen my fair share of hackers here, like people all day hacking away on a sun workstation to improve GPS. "modernization" is the buzz word right now, actually...
It is AMAZING to walk through a Boeing facility and see all the technology out in the open...
Everything here has to be thoroughly tried and tested to make sure that it can't be f*ed up. You don't send a satellite up if it has a problem, because your client (i.e. the Air Force) won't offer you another contract, and may go with someone like Lockheed.
I do not work on Connexion, but I have full faith that Boeing will deliver another successful, beneficial, and wonderful product to the public.
Have you tried holding the reset button for 5-10 seconds? Most motherboards have hardware designed to detect that as a hard reset.
--
Lord Nimon
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Oh come on, even as old as they are, those planes are designed to keep function fine WHEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING! This is going to create a little more EMP than a sub-watt cell phone (even - gasp - MORE than one cell phone!).
Given today's knowledge about building robust wireless communications protocols and equipment, there's no real engineering excuse for airplane electronics to be "vulnerable" to consumer electronics. Somebody's either being lazy or there's some other reason why they keep this requirement.
(A friend of mine was wondering whether they didn't like cell phones competing w/the on-line airphones, since when you're at 35000ft, your cell phone can probably contact a bazillion line-of-site cell phone towers - if the signal can get through the skin of the plane.)
Actually it may be interesting to do so, albeit the small bandwidth.
Say I run a web server on a long-flight to sell weed, what would be the applicable legislation in that case ? I may use an American airline company, but what if I'm actually flying over China ? Not that it would be difficult to trace you but I wonder about legal implications in that case.
Any ideas ?
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
Everyone so far has assumed that the connection must be wireless.
I know it sounds old-fashioned, but what's the problem with putting network sockets in each seat?
It will certainly cost less than wireless access points and cards for everyone, and will remove the risk of radio interference.
Network in an airplane? It must be wireless! WHY? Nobody's walking around!
Script kiddies are used to the apparent comfort and protection of their dark and lonely rooms.
This doesn't need to happen if we ACT NOW! If everybody go to a vacant and lonely room that just needs some attention, we can bring room suicide rates down to a minimum. Bah! I think I'm wasting my time. You folks just don't care anymore. *sniff*
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think the major problem will be getting the cards to actually work. The higher-ups in my company do lots of travelling and would probably love to check their email from the plane. None of them, however, have any idea how to configure networking hardware. This will probably boost the sales of those Airphones when lots of execs start calling the tech help people back in the office to help them figure out how to use the stuff.
"The service will offer e-mail as well as Internet and intranet access through a satellite link"
--
Free Mac Mini
First off, at least 50% of any flight I've been on somebody has been using some kind of electronic device. Be it a CD player, laptop, game boy or whatever. Plus some planes even have radios for you to listen to (through the arm rest). The airlines use microwaves and that's going to cause much more of a problem then some wireless lan cards. Also, a lot of flights have phones that you can use on the plane, that's not much different.
Now, about the crew and pilot.. They offer alchol on plane, and the pilots arn't off getting drunk. What's to make you think they're gonna be surfing pr0n or IMing their friends.
--
Free Mac Mini
I'd point out that the PIC (Pilot In Command) can further restrict electronic devices. FAR 91.3 says: "The Pilot In Command is responsible for, and the final authority as to, the operation of the aircraft"
If I'm PIC, and I am conducting any approach in the clouds, the network is going to be turned off. I'll throw the breaker if I have to. And I'll ask anyone using an 802.11b network to step outside.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
HA! HAHAHAHAHA! WOOOOOOO! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAAHAHHAHHAAAAA!
Ritalin... it's not just for breakfast anymore.
we have some goddamned STOCK avionics (well, stuff built to original spec) and those damn things were built in the 50's and 60's.
Fine. As long as it doesn't send the plane into a reciprocal mixing-induced tailspin when Uncle Bob forgets to turn off his cell phone, we'll get along just fine.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
The planes you get on are much, much older than you think
/. readers truly never get on planes. I know I might be the other extreme (gf works for an airline, I fly 4-6 times a month) but this is ridiculous.
The planes are. The avionics aren't. That's all that matters.
How the parent post got modded up to 5 Insightful is disgusting, either that or
It was modded up to +5 because the poster nailed the issues square on the head. The idea of EMI/RFI from Part 15 devices bringing down a commercial jetliner is either laughable or it's horrible, and either way, it shouldn't be the passengers' problem.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
and how many 1337 h@>
:)
Or how about new meaning to the "Mile High Club"?
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
Why would you think that they're "loaning everyone a wireless network card?" It sounds more to me like you jack something into your seat (probably ethernet, but who knows?) and then the whole plane shares the 5 mbps satellite uplink.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Forget that, how about 0wNz0r1Ng the plane itself!
Sure you can call home from seat 52B on VS019 (at 9 dollars/min FFS) now but who the hell does using their "own" money?
This stuff will be kept for those nice rich people in Business/Upper/First/Club or whatever "up the front."
"a nice alternative than sitting in a cubicle all day."
Out of the cubicle and into the cramped, uncomfortable, weirdly-pressurised, and anger-inducing airplane? No thanks.
Well, I've used my 802.11 card in adhoc mode with co-workers and friends on planes several times, and the plane never even gave a hint of going down. I've always considered that warning they give a bunch of bunk. I mean, seriously, do you think anyone would let you on a plane with a device that even had a remote chance of causing trouble during flight?
In my opinion, they mainly just say that warning so that people won't be rummaging through their things while the plane is taking off/landing, possibly dropping items on the ground which may decide to slide around.
Severian -- "I am the meaning of this sentence."
Actually, the "radios" are prerecorded tapes that run through the PA system and are looped for passenger enjoyment. However, as stated in "Turbulence II" the main point that the airlines lobby for the regulations is so that the passengers pay $50/hr to use their phones, and not the passenger's own. etc,etc.
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
Sure, the chance of a cellphone actually causing an aircraft to crash are very remote, but when we design airplanes we don't allow even remote possibilities. There are numerous multiple redundant systems which would only ever be needed in very unlikely failure conditions, but if passengers found out that they were being removed then they would be very unhappy.
The proposed wireless LAN is a slightly different matter since 802.11 tends to use lower power than cellphones and it works at a higher frequency where there is less chance of coupling into the wiring. Finally, I imagine that the airline will provide their own LAN cards which they have tested to make absolutely sure that they meet the frequency and power specifications. How do you know that your cellphone hasn't developed a fault causing it to radiate significant amounts of power on non-cellphone frequencies? Perhaps it doesn't do it now, but maybe it will next time it gets knocked, or if the temperature changes? Perhaps it has a loose solder joint?
And as for it being the airlines responsibility to make their aircraft passenger proof. Well, maybe they should be proof against my 100W ham radio transmitter? Perhaps it should be safe for me to heat my own meals on board with a gas stove?
And if the FAA do give in and allow transmitters and one day an aircraft crashes and there is some evidence (but no proof) that a cellphone caused it. What will happen? Passengers (particularly but not exclusively American ones) will start sueing the airline, aircraft manufacturer, cellphone maker and the FAA. Pathetic!
The first thing the Stews do is disable passenger comms.
Your concept of reality and humanity is so undernourished that in your dying moments you think you would tell some anonymous people on IRC that you think you might die. Big deal. Tell someone who cares, like your mom and dad.
And speaking of caring, in a crash your instincts would be to save yourself and then to save the people around you. No one in their right mind is going to take the opportunity to escape an aircraft that might blow up any minute and instead sit down at a terminal to write some buddies about the experience.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Re: Crashing
From: Bertie the Bunyip
> This DC-9 is pitching around and around and headed
>for the ground.
>Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
Your use of the obsolete designator "DC-9" for the MD-80 aircraft indicates you know nothing about aviation. And motion around the axis of thrust isn't "pitching". It's called "roll".
You deserve to die.
I don't think the juvenile attitude prerequisite to such activity is all that common among frequent fliers with laptops.
... followed by the inevitable
Then you've probably never been a frequent flier with a laptop.
I am. In fact I'm in Beijing just now, and I'm off down to Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo within the next 3 weeks on business, using my laptop on the plane.
Fact1: most people in business class (like me) are frequent fliers.
Fact2: to make up for the fact this lifestyle is so soul-destroying we're usually half-drunk by the time we get on the flight, and fully drunk by the time they turn the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign off.
Fact3: In this sort of condition we'll probably all be having in-plane Quake deathmatches between each floor of the Jumbo.
Potential Fact4
appears on plane "glass cockpit"
Nebtor has just been fragged!
All your control surfaces belong to us! Make your time hahahaha
Pilot drops a brick and screams "aaaaargggh!!!!"
It's well known that using a Game Boy during a commerical flight can cause severe instrumentation malfunction because of stray radion interference.
If it's so well known why haven't we all heard about it? Provide the evidence whilst making such a far-off opinion.
Probably 90% of planes in the skies have mobile phones in the ON position in the luggage bins, and as far as Accident Investigators have discovered, non has caused an accident.
Accidents in the Air are caused by cost-saving maintenance procedures and tired aircrew, not by some kids gameboy.
I may well have been trolled severely here, in which case well done *grin*
If intentional radiators were really that dangerous, terrorists would use cellphones, not bombs.
If crappy cell phones cause plane crashes, somebody should tell the security guards to stop letting people carry them onboard. Before some depressed kid with a grduge lights up his dad's old Motorola on final approach.
Intentional radiators on planes (carried by passengers at least) are not presently permitted and so the whole issue is moot until there is a change in these regulations.
The reason that the Bluetooth and 802.11 crowd keeps working on this is that there is some hope for movement by the FAA/CAA/Other regulatory bodies. The arguments are pretty simple..
1) 2.4GHz is already polluted by wideband radiation in planes, since they use microwave ovens to heat the food. So there can be some level of confidence that you 802.11 tranciever isn't going to bring the plane down.
2) Electrical interference is a function of both the strength of the interferer and the succeptability of the interferree. Plane equipment is supposed to be built to stringent succeptability requirements. When someone says you phone/pda/toothbrush will interfere with the plane, ask why the equiment on the plane is operating outside the succeptability requirements mandated for planes. The responsibility to make interference not be a problem has be foisted on the passengers. This is a bad thing. Passengers forget to turn phones off all the time. It should be the job of the plane manufacturers to make planes safe in the presence of passengers.
3) There is lots of lobbying going on.
However being charged money to get on the net is not really a necessity is it? One person sets his laptop up as a gateway/NAT router and everyone else sets up as an ad-hoc 802.11 network. That would save people a bit of cash.
If all you wanted to do was play quake with your peers, you wouldn't need net access at all. 802.11 can work peer to peer. You don't need an AP just to communicate between a group of machines.
So lobby lobby your MP/Senator/FAA rep/garage mechanic/EU minister to change the rules. It will improve the quality of your traveling life.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Net access is all fine and well, but I'm still waiting for wide spread adoption of power outlets so my laptop will last longer than three hours. This may have been addressed in the article, but it's /.'d....
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
See their April press release about it here.
See Boeing's FAQ about it here. The only technical info I saw was that Boeing has "a proprietary solid-state phased array receive and transmit antenna" that they will use, which solves the antenna gain problem.
Based on ViaSat's other [publicly announced] activities, I would expect that the link from the hub (ground) to the remote (aircraft) will be a standard fat DVB carrier, and the return transmitted from the aircraft will be a CDMA / spread spectrum modulation of some sort. ViaSat has some patents on technology that allow them to acheive dramatic savings in bandwidth, which is outrageously expensive on satellites. This returnlink is the real sexy part of the system, the kind of thing that makes engineers want to toil long hours to make it work ...
Further, it's interesting to note that Boeing's FAQ says that the space segment will be "leased satellite transponders". This is the same old "bent pipe" design that has worked well for the past 30 years -- for example, Ku-band is 14 GHz up, 12 GHz down, and all the satellite does is mirror the signals it receives on the up frequency back down to the ground at the down frequency. This is interesting because there has long been talk of "smart" satellites that do more than just this analog bent-pipe work -- say, demodulating the data and switching in the sky. Some LEOs do this (Teledesic), but none of the GEOs do it yet.
Finally, I saw no mention of band. Is this Ku-band (12-14 GHz) or Ka-band (20-30 GHz)? ViaSat is charging forward in the Ka-band market, but there is very very little satellite coverage in that band, so perhaps this is designed to roll out at Ku-band at first with future upgrades to Ka-band possible.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Interestingly enough, IRDA.org has some things to say about this. They make some noises on the "Industry news" part of their site about putting FIR transceivers in seatbacks and armrests. This makes a hell of a lot more sense than 802.11. The signal is LOS between you "and the seat in front of you" and could easily accomodate whatever link speed you could get between the air and the ground(and let me tell you folks, it isn't gonna be much). RK
Well, a joke or a troll, I can't quite work it out. If the latter, is anyone going to bite and point out that the EM interference problems only apply to older airliners?
I think that wowbagger does have a point about the FAA currently disallowing such things on all airliners despite it being safe on modern ones though.
I'm more interested in which country's laws apply to your online activities, anyway (besides France's, which as we all know apply to the entire world and possibly several others :).
The article says nothing that suggests the connection between the desktop (tray-top?) and the plane's satellite link 'router' will be wireless. Since the submitter thought it appropriate to speculate, I will too -- there'll simply be an Ethernet jack built into the armrest, right next to the headphone jack and the recline button.
All the "FAA regulations prohibit this"-type comments ought to be modded down -1 Offtopic.
Interesting??
Funny, because it's such utter crap, but this sure as hell isn't interesting! Man, I wish I hadn't used my mod points earlier.
Tom.
Oh arse
I don't see how this can end in anything but tragedy. It's well known that using a Game Boy during a commerical flight can cause severe instrumentation malfunction because of stray radion interference. And now they want to bring radio transmitters on board? What's next, an FM station?
Not too mention that the crew and pilot will be too distracted by the Internet to concentrate on flying the plane. Do you really expect someone who checks their AOL mail every five seconds to be able to concentrate the moment you they discover that the landing gear isn't working, or an Arab terrorist is on board?
Whosever idea this was should be FIRED. Geeks do enough harm by shirking their societal duties. Now they have to kill people, too?!!
Just run a webserver on your laptop when flying with the plane...submit it to slashdot: enjoy the feeling of being slashdotted 10000feet above the surface.
It's likely you'd get just dial-up speeds on your connection. The data rates mentioned in this part of the article are FOR THE ENTIRE PLANE:
Passengers will need to bring their own Internet connection device--a laptop computer, for instance--to use the service, Carson said, and the service operates at data rates of 5 mbps for incoming traffic and 1mbps for outgoing.
The very next paragraph indicates that bandwidth, when split up among the passengers doesn't look so speedy::
The speed will depend on the number of Internet users during each flight. Connexion by Boeing spokesman Terrance Scott says customers will have a minimum Internet hook-up equivalent to a 56K modem but should be able to get higher speeds.
Though unstated in the article, I wonder how long it would be before some kind of bandwidth limiting may be imposed on the passengers; otherwise, a couple people streaming audio/video/pr0n to their laptops could saturate the connection.
Besides the data rate, also consider ping times -- from what I understand the communications from the plane go by way of satelite. Don't know if they'll use low earth orbit sats or geosynchronous; but if the latter, you'll have some major roundtrip delays, too.
Just run a webserver on your laptop when flying with the plane...submit it to slashdot: enjoy the feeling of being slashdotted 10000feet above the surface.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I imagine it will be roughly the same number who currently browse this sort of magazine, which is in my experience not very many at all.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Actually, being online in an airplane would allow you to communicate with people during a plane crash, something passengers normally can't do.
The ultimate last words would have to be:
First Post!
1337 = leet as in elite
h@>0r = hacker
0w3n1ng = owning, as in taking control of someone's system
Couldn't you just go to Denver? They have a Mile High Stadium there... so maybe it's not 10,000 feet but you could run a much faster webserver there.
--
Blessed are the geeks for they shall Internet the Earth.
Of course, this does raise the interesting question of what the local-to-the-plan LAN is like. I imagine you could get a Doom/Quake/etc. game going on the plane between you and your buds without too much hassle.
Actually, being online in an airplane would allow you to communicate with people during a plane crash, something passengers normally can't do.
Imagine being in IRC and explaining to your friends that these are your last moments. Kinda freaky. You could start spouting your passwords, or leave a love note. Think of the things people wished they could say on the way down.
I actually first thought of this with cellphone text messaging, but the problem is you don't have signal (at least with ground-tower based service) until you are near ground. So if you were quick, you could fire off a "So long..." to one of your buddies just before impact.
With the 'net though, you could discuss the entire situation much sooner. Write entire emails.
Geez, maybe I should stop now. I have a 10 hour plane flight tomorrow after all...
Ahhh.... porn in the air. No more boring long flights. We'd probably have to fight for the toilet to ahem...
How will they provide a constant connection?
.sig or not to .sig
Will they use longrange Radio over the atlantic ocean (for example) or has the connection to go by satellite or what?
__to
.sigh
, unless it is operated by some h4Xor that alters the frequencies of the microwave to interfere with the plane. Never thought of that, huh?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I wouldn't worry too much about them. If they ever happen to find themselves on an airplane, they'll be too freaked out by the light and the people to be able to do anything. Script kiddies are used to the apparent comfort and protection of their dark and lonely rooms.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Has anyone ever thought that considering most people have NetBios enabled in Windows and don't even know about it that its a considerable risk to people considering i can just scan the subnet on the plane for open samba ports. Like someone else said, it wouldn't be reasonable to pay $20 to use the internet at 56k speeds. I pay about $30 a month for cable modem at home.. mmm 700 kBytes/sec. Someone would probably be running linux/unix and setup ipmasq/nat for all his friends hehe.
-
unzip; strip; touch; grep; mount; fsck; yes; more; fsck; umount; make clean; sleep
Maybe some wise guys will feel connected and therefore secure, ofcourse totally forgetting that getting help in the air needs other means and the internet surely isn't the answer.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
"Keep in mind that Boeing isn't a tech company"
Yeah, there's no technology involved in airplanes. Or do you mean "tech" as in Amazon?
My first impression was they would be decking the planes out with rj45 ports and then allowing you to connect your laptop through your eth card using a cat5 patch cable. Surely that would be a hell of a lot cheaper, at least in the long run, then using costly wireless ethernet cards and setting up a decent WAN. Not to mention possible problems with interference etc.
Not only that, but just set up a small laptop running ipsniff (or your favourite packing sniffing tool) and log all those passwords / emails / etc etc. Imagine the resale value (or just stock price movement tip-offs)of the information gleamed from that kinda data....
Two wrongs may not make a right, but three
Yeah, but is it really worth $20 to download 18 bits and upload 3?
... Oh, they mean Megabits per second ... they should have said so.
I mean really, how much can be said in 18 bits
The Mile High Club netcam. I can earn my "virtual" wings.
'Same speed C but faster'
91.21 Portable electronic devices.
(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may operate, nor may any operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the operation of, any portable electronic device on any of the following U.S.-registered civil aircraft:
(b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to --
(c) In the case of an aircraft operated by a holder of an air carrier operating certificate or an operating certificate, the determination required by paragraph (b)(5) of this section shall be made by that operator of the aircraft on which the particular device is to be used. In the case of other aircraft, the determination may be made by the pilot in command or other operator of the aircraft.
(All italics mine)
Not only does the law allow for them to be approved, but approval comes from the operator, not the FAA. Furthermore, the prohibition on cell phones, the most common prohibition with which we deal, comes primarily not from the FAA (the operator can authorize their use), but from the FCC, because operating a cell phone at FL350 activates too many cell towers (think about it--what kind of signal will you get from an antenna on a 35,000 foot tower?).
Anyhow, there's the story. And yes, I did look it up the FAR/AIM. I'm a flight student at the University of Oklahoma (go Sooners!), and just happen to have a copy in my desk.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Now extend this to hard-wired equipment on an airplane:
Attention ladies and gentlemen, this is you captain speaking. We may be experiencing a few bumps, as our support tech needs to turn off all electrical power to the airplane for just a few moments. Don't worry, at least half of all power failures DON'T result in crashes.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I imagine there's no real reason why customers can't choose their OS given that it will be BYOC, but it will interesting to see how network and performance requirements will be addressed.
Thing is, on short haul I wouldn't want to be checking my email or replying to memos - I'd want to get away from work on timeframes such as that, and game and entertainment up. :)
No, you're just the first to admit it. And since the answer was given, thank you from the silent, teeming masses.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I had meant to post part 121.306, part 125.204, and part 91.21, but they all say the same thing.....
FAR 125.204 - Portable electronic devices.
(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may
operate, nor may any operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the
operation of, any portable electronic device on any U.S.-registered civil
aircraft operating under this part.
(b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to--
(1) Portable voice recorders;
(2) Hearing aids;
(3) Heart pacemakers;
(4) Electric shavers; or
(5) Any other portable electronic device that the Part 125 certificate
holder has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or
communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.
(c) The determination required by paragraph (b)(5) of this section shall be
made by that Part 125 certificate holder operating the particular device to
be used.
Please note section (b)(5)......
i'd think it would be C-band, but by then maybe enough KA- band will be available
I've left my tech support period behind me, luckily. But for the new people this might well be a nice alternative than sitting in a cubicle all day.
For more info go to http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0106/13.connex ion.shtml
this goes (a little) more in-depth about how it works-what satellite technology is used etc. Well worth a read
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Oh no, now we shall need a utility to set the clock every time we change time zones.
Philip
Signatures are broken
How long is it before some politician makes internet pr0n on airplanes a big deal? They already tried to make access illegal in libraries to the objection of the librarians (now was that for free speech or pr0n, that's the question). Which of you would still be willing to surf the net for pr0n with someone right next to you? Albeit they'll probably never see you again.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
What was your frame rate like? How many frags? (Don't lie and tell me the first thing you didn't do was to run a DeathMatch.)
Any other details???
I wanna try, but I either fly alone or, if the gf is there, she is right next to me, so that really isn't a test if the laptops are 4" away.
______
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
somelamekiddie: d00d, I jes DDoS'd flight 254!
...
string* plamenessFilter =
*plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
I have gotta be the only person o/l that doesn't know what this means "how many 1337 h@>0r doods will be 0w3n1ng other passenger's machines" I need to take a refresher course.
I don't think the juvenile attitude prerequisite to such activity is all that common among frequent fliers with laptops.
As far as how this will work with regulations against the use of computers in-flight, that is a good question. "You can bring your laptop to hook up to our network connection, but it's against the law to turn it on." Yeah.
I don't envision this working with wireless cards, though. I'd guess we'll see jets with ethernet jacks in the armrests.
-- Robert Bunn, gun-toting neo-Nazi anarchist redneck freak
That's nice! You will be able to find out on the net how much delay your flight is having 8-)
Daniel
"To be is to be the value of a variable" -- W.V.O. Quine
- For every winner, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of them -
lets say i h4X0r some site while flying in international waters.
what laws will govern what i do?
I highly doubt the internet access would be wireless (for all the reasons you have unnecessarily explored) and it doesn't mention that it is in the article, so why speculate about it?
Phone access is also provided, and that is not wireless either. The only concern for interference then would be: (a) intentional internet communication from the plane to the satellite/ground and (b) unintentional radiation from the communications devices.
Since the airline obviously would control the communications specification from the plane, they could piggyback it on known channels or put it on another part of the spectrum as not to cause interference. Therefore, arguing about intentional interference is moot.
I'm sure the second problem would be solved then as it currently is now: no usage allowed during landings and takeoffs.