Boeing Gets FCC Approval For Broadband Service

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."

Comments

Foreign flight requirements

[TexTex]

With the coming of broadband to the air abroad, does anyone know what other requirements or rather preventions foreign airlines like Luft has in-flight? Can you use cellphones or GPS or good stuff like that in other countries?

Broadband midflight may actually make voice-over-IP rather interesting competition to those $9.00/min AirPhone calls...

AirLine Costs ...

[SuperDuG]

Acutal BBC article ... Anyone here ever used AirPhones?? yeah ... well I see this as being a great way to drop a good $40 on a plane ride for the ability to look at pr0n and check email ... plus who's going to give tech support?

Though it would be cool to join the "Downloaded and recompiled my kernel mile high" club ... Personally terrorism or not ... I can't stand to be in a plane more than an hour ... but this would be nice ...

I don't see this being in coach at all ... but it is nice to see that you can feel more comfortable when traveling ... to save on installation problems ... using 802.11 would be the best way to go ... and with everything popping up with 802.11 it's about time for notebook users to grab a card anyways ...

Time to get rid of the voice/data recorders?

[curunir]

If this thing actually works, maybe they should get rid of the cockpit voice/data recorders and just upload all the information off the plane.

In addition to being able to determine the cause of crashes more quickly, it might help ground personel know what is happening with airplanes long before they crash (perhaps helping pilots avoid crashes).

Re:Time to get rid of the voice/data recorders?

[GooRoo]

I actually emailed boeing about this specifically the last time this story was on slashdot and surprisingly got a personal reply from one of their engineers within a week.

He said that they were planning on testing this as a way to back up the voice/data recorders on the plane, but he wasn't sure if this was something that would end up in the final product or not. Limitations etc were still to be determined.

I offered to go to work for them on this very task but surprisingly enough I haven't heard back. ; )

In any case it's quite cool that their engineers were already planning on this pre-9/11.

How?

[2Bits]

Airborne internet access would, if successful, help diversify the Boeing group away from the cyclical jet building business.

And how?

Boeing is going to install internet connection on their airplanes, and Boeing is still in the business of .... building airplanes. How is installing a few more wires going to change that?

Re:Wrong investment

[Byteme]

After security and maintenance I'd ask for better food. I'd put broadband-in-flight last on the list.

Convergence

[Zen Mastuh]

Now they can watch live streaming video, courtesy of cnn.com, of their plane crashing into a building after being hijacked by some sick bastard. Until that happens, it's a great way to pass the time in those cramped cabins.

By the way, I hope it's not connected at all to any of the plane's navigation/communication/control systems...

So much better than AirPhone

[actappan]

Having just spent something in excess of 15 hours on board aircraft these holidays i seriously could have used this.

The obvious thing would be to install airport or other 802.11 stuff (wasn't there an article sometime back about Virgin Atlantic loking to do something like that?) And I know that some airlines are already installing 110 outlets on the bulkheads and such.

LAN party at 30,000 ft!!!!

Re:I don't want to be pessimistic

[Breace]

1 802.11 accesspoint to serve, say, 300 passengers? Remember that their system actually has to scale all the way up to at least 500 passengers.

I know it's hard to believe now, but when you design a system like this you have to go for worst case,- when installed this has to work also 10 years from now.

I don't know that considering the physical space and number of users (say 500) 802.11 is the answer. I doubt it will work very well under these conditions though.

needs no admin except when it lands
The airlines will NEVER buy into that. The only thing that 'flies' is 'needs NO admin'. fullstop.

Believe me, this environment requires solutions that you don't come up with in 5 seconds.

Oh thank God *sarcasm*

[ryanvm]

I'll tell you what - this isn't a troll, but it sure is going to sound like one.

When are we going to see the end of this pathetic obsession for "all things shiny and fast" that we Americans are cursed with. For the love of Jeebus - do we really need to be on the Internet _that_ much?

I would like to see what kind of effect it would have on the average Slashdotter to be without electronic devices for 3 weeks (e.g. camping in Canada). I have a sneaking suspicion that it would leave most of you blubbering in the corner of your tent with a snot bubble hanging out of your nose.

But seriously, this story just reminded me how terribly inconsequential most of the "news" on this site really is. Guess what guys - there is actually more to life than downloading ISOs 30,000 feet about the ground.

[That's the end of my rant. Feel free to mod me into oblivion - I probably deserve it.]