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Boeing Gets FCC Approval For Broadband Service

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the keep-it-moving dept.

lba writes "Boeing's plans to offer broadband on their planes (as in this earlier /. article) gets into the next phase... BBC News has a story about them now getting FCC approval for this project. Protoypes of Connexion, as the service is called, would be installed on Lufthansa planes in about a year. Three US Airline companies canceled their support for the project last November."

1 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. I don't want to be pessimistic by Breace · · Score: 5, Informative

    but don't have your hopes up yet.

    I work in the industry, and in fact our product would probably benefit (as in, sold more) if Connexion was available.

    I have to say though that it is at the moment mainly vapor. (their demo link uses a satellite dish the size of Washington). I've read a bunch of their documents, and it's surprising how much time they spent on describing silly details and being very vague about how to actually solve the real problems.

    Their biggest problem though: they have a .com business plan. As in, it don't make no sense. To sum it up: we are going get this fast pipe to the airplane and then we are all going to be rich. It sounds an awful lot like the in-seat airphones fiasco in the making. (for those who don't know it: these things have only COST money, which was carried by GTE & AT&T)

    Again, I would love to have a high speed connection to the plane, but there are many problems to overcome. On the less-technical side for example: tech support. Take an office with 300 people all connected to the internet. What kind of staff is needed to support that? Who's going to do that in the airplane? I can guarantee you that it's not going to be the flight attendants. Especially in the US where their union will scream bloody murder over just the slightest increase in workload.

    Sorry to be so negative, but the combination of Boeings bureaucracy and a .com business plan just doesn't sound good...