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FCC to Allow Wireless Access on Planes
isd_glory writes "The FCC has unanimously voted to allow wireless internet connections on airplanes. If everything goes according to plans, airplanes might be offering passengers internet service by as soon as 2006. Furthermore, the FCC is also soliciting comments about the possibility of lifting the in-flight ban on cellphone use. While this could be new profit source for the cash-strapped airlines, it might also be a new way to annoy your neighbor sitting next to you."
Hmmm... but how much will it cost? If talking on a phone is close to to $687/minute, what is internet access going to be? If its cheaper, how long till they realise that people are just going to bypass with VoIP. Or will they be smart and run their own VoIP service and give the handsets an overhaul.
'Cause an airplane can't well have a T1 backbone to the ground, now can it? Might as well have it ALL be wireless, eh?
Because it's more expensive to maintain a whole bunch of wires and networking gear that will never be fully utilized than to throw up an access point or two. Think about it for a second before posting a too-cool response.
How is talking on a phone any more or less annoying than talking to a person sitting next to you?
Then they have the nerve to add a levy because fuel prices are high.
How to make it big: Pass ALL* expenses to consumers, keep profits to yourself. * If you do not have enough expenses, make some up.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
How exactly would this be annoying? We're talkin' about wireless internet. What exactly is annoying about this and what exactly do you have to complain about? The mention of "possible cell phone access in the future" comment was purely to rile people up. Come on. This is a good thing. Deal with it!
yvan eht nioj
In an effort to save /. a little disk space, could we all agree that Monday's
discussion has already flogged the "in-flight cellphone" horse to death? Yadda yadda "annoying yammering twits", yadda yadda "but I could call my spouse", yadda yadda "all just a conspiracy by the phone company"... Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
So let's concentrate on important things, like making WAGs about how much the wi-fi service will cost. And how there'll be annoying twits hogging the bandwidth downloading pr0n at 30K feet, and how useful it'll be to email your spouse to let him/her know the plane is crashing, yadda yadda yadda...
Oh, and most important - we'll need at least one thread about how this will be used by terrorists to coordinate their attacks by IM-ing each other. (No flight article is complete without a terrorist thread.) And another thread about how all the money needed to implement this would be better spent feeding starving squirrels in Bulgaria. Think about the squirrels!
(And yes, it has been a long day... :-)
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Nothing shuts up the kids better than computer games etc. Seems to me that inplane internet will make more peace than war.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Presumably because if one could use your own cell phone, you have built within it in many cases, IM ability, video capability, email, address books etc... and it will likely be cheaper than using the phones built into the seats. Have you ever pulled one of the airphones out of the seats and actually used it? Hideously expensive.
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The changes required to mount some WAPs are quite minimal compared to re-wiring an aircraft for CAT5. The inspection and certification process would be a lot quicker and the modifications and re-certification for each bird could be quickly installed.
So, would you like to string a cat-5 from your laptop to the seatback and trip your neighbor who needs to go to the bathroom in 2015, or have wireless internet access sometime in 2006?
one person could pay, and provide nat to the rest of the passengers/or coworkers on a flight, for free.. just use a different wifi channel!
Everyone keeps freaking out about how annoying this can make plane rides. I don't see this being a problem, really... all this means is that airlines can regulate themselves when it comes to using cell phones on a plane. Maybe airlines will offer cell free flights, or provide "quiet sections" of the cabin where talking on your phone isn't allowed.
Really, if enough people hate being around people on their phones, the airlines themselves will (well, should) provide options for those people to have a more pleasant flight.
Even though FCC has unanimously voted for cell phone usage on planes, it doesn't mean FAA will will approve it too. It might take years before FAA approves it.
Plus Verizon AirFone has a monopoly and good relations with FAA. What makes you think Verizon would let you do that? They don't want to lose their steady income. There is very small spectrum available for a re-transmitter on a plane. What makes you think Verizon is willing to give that up? You can't have Verizon's Airphone and cell phone working at the sametime, due to spectrum limitation.
Before you get too excited, there will be serious roaming charges even if FAA approves the cell phones. This is again due to the limited spectrum, and one large company monopolizing it.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
You know, cell phones are allowed on busses, trains, subways, and just about every other form of public transportation -- and I've never noticed a problem of the level people continue to be worried about. In fact, I've found that the roar of the engines drowns out any (non-baby-originated) conversation farther than one seat away anyway.
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that someone's cell phone or WiFi card could bring it down?
i know i wouldn't.
the signal strength of the cell phones is far far less than the signal strength of the cell towers outside the airplane. It doesn't matter which direction the RF is travelling, you know.
If Cell phone frequencies caused problems, we'd see the problem when airports put in a ton more towers to handle the traffic.... and we didn't.
the whole concept of banning cell phones was a Nanny State Program trying to make the uneducated and stupid feel better, and to give the Mrs. Kravits/HOA-types the ability to be pissy at you on the airplane if you leave your cell phone on.
there's no technical reason to prevent users from using cell phones... if the towers can make the connection, then they can. If they can't, they can't.
i bet, more than anything else, that it won't matter a ton because most of the time, people won't be able to make calls at altitude.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I bet that the ban on planes is driven at least partly by concern over the nuisance factor of cell phone use.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Why not put a fucking cat5 jack in the back of every seat?
I wouldn't call this flamebait. I can see how someone would at least consider cat5 and an rj-45 connector on every seat. However I remember reviewing the Scotch Guard (tm) website some years back and in their faq they spoke of its use on aircraft and how they were asked to offer the weight of their product if applied to all the seats in a given aircraft. If they are concerned about the use of Scotch Guard on an aircraft then they would be likely to be just as critical of the weight of cat5 cable to an aircraft. I would strongly suspect that a wireless system would simply weigh far less than the cable and equipment required to network an aircraft. Also wireless is considered when it would be too costly to wire a space.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I bet they try to charge $3.99 per minute to use the WiFi. Advantages are:
#1, if some business class guy can get his company/the gov't to pay $3.99 a minute, you can just launch an attack, route his traffic thru you and have fun. I would call it skyjacking his connection but that might be a bad term.
#2, if cell phones are allowed and you have a GSM carrier that does data, and you can maintain a connection (since the phone is going to be hopping cells pretty rapidly).... you could undercut Verizon on the plane and offer 25 cent per minute wireless by bridging people to the intarweb via your cell phone.
#3, I'd imagine they will use a web page to allow people to pay. This can't be secure as some dork back near the crapper spoofs the login page. There was a slick hack at defcon where every image became Goatse (probably via Squid proxy). This could be hilarious in-flight.
#4, Plane-sniffing -- 8' dish in your back yard tracking those planes flying overhead on a clear day -- grabbing data from plane passengers? Think it would work?
Has anyone left their cell phone on during flight, and left the phone in diag mode where it shows the current sector antenna / cell site? How often did it change? Nokia and other phones are capable of this.
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Wow this is like 24+ old news from yahoo. I guess the slashdot editors rejecting stories has finally got ppl to stop submitting new news and people are digging into old stuff.