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In-flight Broadband Internet Access Trial's Success
flash_cube writes "Boeing Co.'s 'Connexion' business unit finally demoed its in-flight WiFi (802.11b) service this weekend ... even as (noted in this previous /. article) struggling U.S. carriers pull out of the joint venture. Still Boeing promises availability on other airlines in 'early 2003.'"
Great! Now my hotmail spam can reach me ANYWHERE!
was'nt 56k dial up access about 50quid a minute or somthing? I dont want to even think what the cost of this will be.. :(
moo
If only I could afford to fly business class and had a reason to go to Frankfurt.
Creepy thought, but it will happen
Several carriers are removing / cutting off in-flight phone service. The systems are expensive, very few people use it, so it was a money loser. Having used it once or twice, I can also tell you that you can barely have a conversation over the noise of the engines.
During boom times, airlines love to add all sorts of bells and whistles, just to have superior service. Then, at every downturn, they rip out the stuff that doesn't make them any money.
Now is certainly not the time to put WiFi in planes.
The question remains: Why are cellphones forbidden while WiFi is obviously allowed in planes? Don't we all remember the englishman that got jailed for using his cell?
I remember trying to send a few e-mails from the in-seat phone on a plane once (it was a long trip, from Toronto to Vancouver, a few years ago, and I was bored). The message took forever to send, the connection was so slow, and it was such a pain to set up. And the phone bill was huge at the end of it! I remember writing that it was costing me more per minute to send this e-mail message than it was to talk on one of those "Telephone Psychic" lines.
This sounds like a great idea... I'd love ot try it. This sure would make flights (especially long flights) more productive for me and less boring.
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
you could join the half-mile high club. ;)
This means I can download pr0n while in flight! The closest I'll ever come to the Mile High Club...it *does* count, right? RIGHT?
*sob*
Vote for global prefs bug
From Reuters:
;)
Connexion executives said data transmission speeds for the demo should be about five megabits per second coming into the plane and 128 thousand bits per second when sending data off the plane. The speed, they said, was similar to digital subscriber line service people have at home, but some users complained it seemed slower.
My guess is that it's not slower, but has more lag (through a satelite link... bound to be laggy). If that is the case it's fine for browsing, but no good for games...
Not that it matters, but how cool would it be to play Quake 10 Km up in the air?
.: Max Romantschuk
Not much of a difference, me thinks...
Seriously, free broadband in the
air, the productivity increases
would be worth the minimal cash
supplied by companies that have
people flying all over the place.
I also want broadband on my
maglev on the way to work, check
email try to fix problem that is
causing me to get to work etc.
Well according to the random quote at the bottom of slashdot "Your own mileage may vary."
I think there is a big difference in the transmitting power of Mobile phones vs. 802.1b (Wi-Fi) or Bluetooth. Mobile phones transmit at a much higher power (600 mW to 3000 mW) compared with 802.11b (Wi-Fi) at 100mW, and Bluetooth, which with a lower-powered radio, transmits at only 10mW. These lower-powered wireles data transmissions have a reduced ability to wreak havoc with other wireless data transmissions. This is one of the key difference between Mobile phone technologies and Wireless LAN or Wireless PAN technologies.
Also, unlike mobile phones, both 802.11b (Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth technologies are operating in the unlicensed (ISM band) frequencies. These frequencies are free for everyone, even consumers, to use for wireless communication, without licenses. Mobile phones, on the other hand, use the frequency spectrum licensed by the mobile phone network (carrier).
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
RIAA has the right to shot down planes whose internet connection is used to download copyrighted music!
and then claim it was an EUian innovation first? You know how those French like to revise history.
:)
"Bon jour, you cheese eating, surrender monkeys"
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
What I cant understand is why it has to be Wi-fi in a plane? I mean aren't you supposed to sit down all the time?
If the airline is handing out the laptops to people without them, wifi is just an added cost and for those with them, when did you last see a laptop with wireless but without ethernet? (handhelds aside) Seriously, where is the benefit to having it, over and above ethernet via your chair?
Its pretty obvious why the American airlines (which one isn't going broke atm?) aren't too interested.
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
IM..(ever-so)..HO the airlines would be better served by extending the availability of in-seat power sockets.
...and now that I've got that off my chest, I feel better now :)
It would be nice to be able to work/surf/watch-DVDs on a long-haul flight without having to carry your body-weight in spare batteries.
How the hell do you warchalk at 35,000 feet?
How long do we have to wait until we have DNS servers flying above the country?
Didn't think to read the article either, now did you?
Not cheap, but just might be worth it for a 12-hour stretch of terminal (har!) boredom... at least if there's AC power for the laptop as well. And the target audience is notCheers,
-j.
According to this ZDNet article costs are £15 - £21 ($25 to $35), which I'd pay for an 8 to 12 hour journey.
Only downside is that the article reports the service as being a bit slow and patchy - I guess they'll nail that in time.
What will be really funny is the new type of black hat hacker who, from the comfort of a transatlantic flight, not only figure out how to get the connection for free, but exploit international waters...
We'll have a new breed of webpage defacements that will come from groups with names like j4l, s4s, 44 and b031ng.
great
-- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
So, if I connect using my Airport equipped iBook, and share that connection with my friend back in coach who has a similar setup, we can split the cost, etc.
All it takes is one wisegeek per flight, and they'll find less paying customers than they expected. Oh well, nice while it lasted. My big worry is finding a way to keep running for those 12 hr. flights back to Asia.
This AP story has a different take on the matter. Seems that the broadband access isn't without significant issues. Excuse the pun but, I don't think that this service is going to fly.
Also, on a slightly different topic, has anyone tried using a laptop on a plane lately? While it is fine in a First Class seat, using a laptop in coach seats is a royal pain. Unless you have a really small laptop, there simply isn't enough room. With the new bigger screens that laptops have today, it is virtually impossible to open the laptop to a position that it can be comfortably viewed, while in a coach seat. And, if the seat in front of you is reclined you can completely forget it. Inspite of this we are still force fed this marketing about the use of laptops on aircraft. Most recently is Yao and Mini-Me using an Apple laptop with a 17" screen. Great for first class front row, impossible in the majority of seats.
the typical cost of in-flight phone service is normally about $12/minute.. compare that to $25-$30 for internet service for an ENTIRE FLIGHT.. i'd hold off on a flight from NY to DC, but if i'm taking a 22 hour flight to Hong Kong, this would be very attractive to me.
Sexxxychica: hey cutie wanna cyber?
:-(
BigMan69 I'm horny as hell and I'd love to get freaky with you but I'm on a flight right now
Sexxxychica: really? me too! I'm flying to Sydney. you?
BigMan69 Wow I'm on Qantas flight 609 from Honolulu to Sydney.
Sexxxychica: No joke? I'm in seat 15B! where are you??
Sexxxychica: You still there?
Previous message was not received by BigMan69 because of error: User BigMan69 is not available.
Airline Tickets: $800
In-Flight WiFi : $30
Being trapped on a long-ass flight sitting next to a man who knows you were pretending to be a woman and whom you just tried to have cybersex with: Priceless
Please select one:
[1] Sexy nurse (with medicinal whip).
[2] Leather Goddess Of The Sky (with studded whip).
[3] Perky space cadet (with phaser whip).
[4] Pikachu.
I guess that last one is for more family oriented flights, because families are our Most Important (nay, Precious) Natural Resource according to our Trusted Politicians.
And then there was the in-flight pr0n. This led to the only glitch where the plane ran out of tissues. All passengers were given 1000 honorary frequent flyer miles in the Mile High Club.
I suppose in theory you could watch a live video stream of your own plane crashing.
--- Ban humanity.
Suppose passengers were permitted to use mobiles in flight: how easy would it be to have a conversation when 60% of the people on-board are shouting into their mobiles? How easy would it be to do ANYTHING when 60% of the people on-board are shouting into their mobiles? For some reason a lot of people think they need to TALK on their phones vice talk or even (talk). These people are annoying in public places; imagine sitting three feet away from six of them on a cross-country flight. Scary, eh?
Incidentally, I think this is the reason the airphones are so expensive: it's not that it costs so much to operate the service, but it is a deterrent to the dorks who would use it just for the novelty value. You know who you are.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
"It's not entirely impossible that the ban originally arose out of a desire to make large amounts of money on the massively overpriced phones"
Remember Deep Throat? Remember what he said? Whenever money is involved following it will generally lead to the truth.
When some rule or other just plain doesn't make sense any way you look at it you can damned well bet there's a profit, or a perceived profit, out there somewhere.
KFG
As is my understanding, the biggest problem with using a cell phone isn't the inteference "problem," it has more to do with the way cell phone networks function. For the most part the networks are designed to radiate horizontally not vertically. When moving at a high altitude quickly, you are exposing the cellphone to several cells of the network at one time, which causes innumerable problems for the provider. Apparently one cell phone being used in the air is the equivalent of several on ground.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity" -MLK
... of which the members have had cybersex at +1 mile altitude :)
Moderated "overrated"? Hmm, the crack is strong in this one!
You mean I can download porn at 35,000ft? Hope the downloads could be faster than on ground :p
LH418 - Frankfurt to Dulles (departs 1:10pm local time)
LH419 - Dulles to Frankfurt (departs 5:55pm local time)
Also, starting tomorrow, British Air will have a 90-day demo on 2 flights between Heathrow and JFK:
BA175 - London to JFK (departs 11:00am local time)
BA112 - JFK to London (departs 6:30pm local time)
Trying is the first step towards failure.
On the ground You can usually only pick up a signal from a few base stations, of which you lock onto the one with the best signal and has free time slots. Sitting in the air your phone can cover a much larger footprint, and uses a great deal more of the operators resources. Basically if everybody in the plane turned on their roaming GSM phone it would seriously screw up the networks they flew over. Combine this with flight paths where you have multiple planes, with passengers all carrying mobiles...
the guy who just spent the last hour in the bathroom with his laptop... (different mile high club)
...but won't this cause the plane to crash, like cell phones and game boys? : )
is available on commsdesign.com
If that was Haiku
You got to use five seven five
Or it no worky
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
As seen on slashdot, it must be true....
Airborne cellphones don't bother the plane as much as they bother the network. From a mile in the air, there can be numerous base stations at the same distance from the handset, and they have a rough time deciding which one is going to carry the connection.
If you just browse porn sites on a 3hour flight can you claim to have joined the mile high club? ;)
The current plan on British Airways is $25 per flight, which isn't worth it for me, but might be cool if your company was picking up the bill for a business trip. What I want to know is whether you get a reliable-enough connection to play UT or Quake.
I don't understand how they can think GPS receivers might interfere with the plane's avionics but permit WiFi transmitters on board. Oh yes I do - the money they can charge for using it.
I assmue you've noticed that the seats in ariplanes and the windows don't match up. That's because the spacing for the seats is variable, as is the placement of the first-class/cattle-car divider. If the seats each had a 10*baseT jack, all those wires would have to be moveable. WiFi just hurts a lot less as far as installation and maintenance goes.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
... large screen owners must be compensating for something, don't you think?
As for the referenced article and the in-flight connectivity problems, from the picture I gather they were testing Windows laptops, and it has been my experience that Apple WiFi gear just plain Works Better. I was at a NASA conference in San Francisco in December. The hotel and a local networking firm brought WiFi up to our meeting rooms. The access points were Linksys, but only the Apple laptops connected up with no trouble - the Windows users had to try lots of different configurations and reboot a lot before any of them could connect. XP, NT, beginner, wizard, didn't matter.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
of course....in which case I'd be wired and then internet sharing out via the wireless card...could happen...
We used to run appletalk cables around the cabin, with our Duo's. Private LAN @ 30k ft.
The product that Boeing has announced was acutally developed by
Viasat in Carlsbad CA. I strongly suspect that Boeing is only the launch customer for this service.
If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job.
Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count
on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening,
paper folding, or something.
-- C. Philip Wood
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