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More On Airplanes And Internet
fonixmunkee writes "as a sometimes-traveler for work, and a huge nerd, I am always excited about news like this. it appears that some airlines may start offering internet access next year when you need to get that internet fix at 35,000 feet. I was pleased when they started selling wireless internet in airports, so this is another welcomed suprise for techie travlers. apparently they want to use satellite to get high-speed connections to the planes in the air. pretty cool. " Too bad Northwest isn't going to have it for my DTW -> NRT -> KUL -> PER for CALU.
I haven't flown in a while, do they also offer power connections for your laptop?
Cuz a 12+ hour flight wouldn't be very much fun after your backup batteries die.
And remember, the foldable tray will stop your willie from overheating:)
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I've always wondered why airlines got the policy that using a portable cd player or radio in flight is dangerous while laptops aren't.
At least that's the situation on all domestic flights I've taken. I've got a suspicion that they want to compete with trains etc. for business customers and therefore don't give a damn about their own rules.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
If you commit a crime via the Internet at 30,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, whose jurisdiction does it fall in?
A plug for a mate IPSky talks about the market and the issues and is a pretty good starting doc on this sort of stuff from a technical/management perspective. The interesting part of some of these elements is that it enables additional information to the pilots and potentially between planes. Getting the internet to the passengers is relatively simple, combining it with elements like TCAS to reduce the risk of collisions and also to enable less reliance on Air Traffic Controllers in areas where they have no Radar coverage.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Inflight internet access, especially at a flat rates, makes me wonder about the potential for using VoIP. If the latency introduced by the satellite connection doesn't completely negate its use, using VoIP software on a laptop connected to the airplane's Internet connection would offer considerably cheaper inflight calls.
Secondly, how long until we see groups of people smuggling on battery powered Linksys (et al) routers. $30 split a few ways is always cheaper...
They are talking $30 per leg.
I imagine that at those prices it will go the same way as inseat phones. One of the phone carriers is killing their $5 per minute service because there was on average 1.5 phone calls made per flight.
If you are carrying all that extra weight, you have to be able to get people to buy it or it is just going out backwards.
I wonder if streaming porn all the way to Vegas will take the fun out of it once you're there.
At least if the in flight movie is bad, I can download my own.
Wardriving at 30k feet...?
I have this insane vision of you getting a biplane next to this massive Boeing, leaning over with a stick of chalk and scawling symbols on th plane as pilots frantically call air traffic control about a possible hijacking...
Hah, for a second I typed 'Boeing' there as 'Boing'. Kinda... fits.
I work for a domestic carrier in the US, and one day while flying jumpseat to get to a conference we had one of the passengers sneak in a call on her cell phone, which somehow got into unsheilded wires and broadcast clear-as-day onto the aircraft's comm gear. It wasn't transmitting from us out to the world, mind you, but we could hear her conversation.
additionally, I've heard that the reason CDRoms and discman players and the like are banned is due to the frequency wandering those things emit when spinning up/down and the interruption it causes with precision approach gear. I dont know how true that is.
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
it was confirmed today that the reason for New Zealander Richard Pearse's crash and failure to claim first flight was caused by his modem cable reaching its elastic limit.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Now all three passengers behind my seat and my two neighbors will know the name of my wife and kids, what a great week-end I have had, how bad the food was, and how much money the deal closed.
Err, what if one of the three happened to be an executive from a competitor ? Think about it for a minute :)
And I think that most people will not want to watch pr0n on my screen throughout the flight either !
Sky's the Limit for Cisco Aironet Wireless LAN Technologies "Any traveler with a laptop computer or portable device equipped with a Wi-Fi compliant NIC card or enabled with Wi-Fi embedded inside will be able to log onto the wireless network. As part of the service, Lufthansa will also operate a 10 Mbps Ethernet wired network onboard for those passengers without wireless-capable computers. With 380 seats, a typical Lufthansa 747 has as many network connection sites as a mid-sized company. "
faster faster... 'til the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death...
PS. The folding tray may stop your todger from doing a Hindenberg, but the little magnetic catch may zorsch your hard disc.
Years later, I was on a plane that still had the system installed (but turned off). The rumor around the office was that it cost $250K to remove the now-dead system from a plane, and the airlines weren't willing to foot the bill, so the dead system stayed in planes for years to come.
Well, sure. All that crap was installed and computed in the zero-fuel weight of the aircraft. In order to remove it, you'd need to pay the mechanics to yank the parts out, drain the fuel (ALL the fuel - in the tanks, the fuel lines, etc), re-weigh the aircraft, resubmit the paperwork to the FAA in order to get the work approved, and possibly repeat a step if the feds dont like something.
Never underestimate the red tape mess the FAA is capable of producing. Such a task could take an aircraft out of service for quite some time. Ask anyone in aviation; a plane that's not flying isn't making you money and could be costing you instead.
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
What about when your about to land? They just cut you off mid connection? About to send that document to the office, or in the middle of an important system/database callout fixing session and they just cut you loose! "Sorry about that Boss, I know we had 20,000 clients who couldn't connect for 4 hours, but Delta cut my service halfway through and I couldn't get back in til I got into the airport lounge, after customs, the gift shop, duty free, cavity search, etc!"
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
Now I won't be able to escape from /. anywhere.
Has anyone ever thought of the security implications of allowing someone to have silent access to the rest of the world on an airplane? Let's set up the scenario: Some nutbag with a portable GPS device on his laptop is able to provide real-time coordinates to someone on the ground via AOL Instant messenger or some other chat program. With the elevated threat of surface to air shoulder-mounted rockets on the news lately, isn't this giving terrorists a new way to track planes? Call me paranoid, but as cool as it would be to be able to get an IRC fix at 40,000 feet, I just don't think its a very wise idea in these troubled times.
I am a Boeing employee who thought the whole idea was stupid when they first started Connexion. They deployed this whole ton of people for the project and ended up laying off 80% of them when they realized the airlines weren't interested - mainly because Boeing wants a huge cut of the profits. Last I heard, Boeing invested $400 million on this boondoggle. They were going to charge $30/hour for access and counted their profits by counting in-flight hours of planes in the US, ignoring the fact that most flight hours are commuter trips in the one-hour range where you can barely get your laptop out before the announcement that you have to turn it off comes on.