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Boeing Eyes In-Flight Live TV on Your Laptop

Posted by michael on from the nothing-but-airplane-movies dept.

cobravenum2 writes "Boeing is planning to add live television to its Connexion by Boeing service during 2005, The television programs will be delivered across the Connexion network, which uses satellites to provide high-speed data connections between aircraft in-flight and ground stations linked to the Internet. The service entered commercial use earlier this year and provides a 5 megabits per second shared downstream and 1 mbps shared upstream connection to suitably equipped aircraft. You'll be able to view up to four channels of live TV over your laptop."

3 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. What about Over-Ocean Flights? by wasted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The television programs will be delivered across the Connexion network, which uses satellites to provide high-speed data connections between aircraft in-flight and ground stations linked to the Internet.

    So those long TransPacific flights will only have sporadic TV coverage? Those are the ones that could use it the most. Or will 747 aircraft start following the equivalent of ETOPS routes to ensure internet coverage?

    * ETOPS Routes - Routes flown by twin engine aircraft on extended overwater flights to ensure that they can reach land within a certain amount of time in the event of an engine failure.

  2. MPAA sues Boeing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    So how long before "viewed on Laptop" becomes "recorded on laptop" ?

    Man, this is going to be real headache for MPAA, having to refer 5 different country copyright laws, if the plane flies over different countries(Look at the Singapore Airline Routes) during the entire unauthorized recording process.

    On the other hand anything that creates havoc for MPAA... this cannot be a bad thing, right ?

  3. Only 5 Mb/s? by tongariro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Streaming a channel using high compression video and audio codec at CIF resolution will get the data rate down to about 500 Kb/s. Assuming that every bit is used for streaming, that will be 10 channels maximum to be shared between those among the 300 passengers who has the laptop/PDA/phone.

    I can see it now, air rage over bandwidth hogs. :-)